The familiar of Zero: a different tale
by Ordinarycomet3
Summary: Louise wanted an amazing familiar, what she got was a boy who seems ordinary. Little does she know, hes exactly what she wanted.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello to anyone reading this, this is Ordinarycomet3. This is my first ever Fanfiction, so I apologize for any errors or mistakes I may make. I'll be doing my best to ensure this is an enjoyable story for anyone reading it. In this story a Character I made up called Hiato Higurashi (I just made that name up) replaces Saito as Louise's familiar, he has extra powers alongside the Gandalfr powers he gets later. **

"Dialogue" _What a character is thinking to themselves, or emphasized words. "Different language"_

**Please comment and review. I will release the next chapter as soon as I can. Also I will most likely be covering one episode of FOZ per Chapter, so expect long chapters.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Familiar of Zero.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: The Summoning <strong>

Hiato opened his eyes and looked around. He breathed a sigh of relief that he was still alive and alone. He got up and yawned, stretching his arms in the process. The cave was fairly dark as the fire he had lit the night before was now smouldering embers, but Hiato, even with the small amount of light he had, could see the whole interior with almost no difficulty.

He walked to the entrance, checking to see if anyone was lurking around outside. It was early and the sun was only starting to peek over the horizon. Hiato smiled, he always loved watching the sunrise in the mornings, it was one of the reasons he got up so early. After looking around the entrance and finding no-one around, he walked back inside and made his way to the mirror he had hung on the wall. He looked into the mirror and looked himself up and down in the dim light. He wasn't exactly in the best condition. His brown hair was a mess, like it always is, his light green eyes still had the same look in them as always, the look of someone fighting to survive, but he had dark lines under his eyes. It had been a while since he'd had a good, restful sleep, mostly when he slept, it was a very nervous sleep, he could never completely fall asleep and he was always on edge. He could see the effects it was having on him.

He sighed and turned away; thinking about it wouldn't help his situation at all, he needed to find somewhere where everyone wasn't trying to kill him for what he was. He chuckled _Fat chance of that _he thought to himself. He lay back down on his make-shift bed. _Should get a few more hours of sleep while I can, I've got to keep moving. _As he closed his eyes a sudden light appeared. Fearing the worst, Hiato jumped onto his feet and looked around. What he saw surprised him. The light was coming from a strange green shape just a few feet in front of him; Hiato wasn't sure where it had come from, but he could tell no one was in the cave with him. He relaxed and walked towards the light slowly. It had a steady glow, it wasn't fading nor getting brighter, and it also seemed to be stationary. He poked it and pulled his hand back as he did, but all that happened was the area where he had poked seem to wobble. Still unsure if it was a trap, he stuck his right hand into it and just as he was about to pull it out, his hand got stuck. Before he knew it he was being sucked into the strange green light, and despite his best efforts, was dragged inside.

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><p>There was a large group of students gathered around outside in one of the court yards of the Tristain Academy of Magic, as well as a bald man holding a staff, he was known as Professor Colbert. All of the students were eager and excited for what was happening today and the group was abuzz with conversation. "I hope I get a Salamander." a student said, "I hope I don't get a mouse like my dad did." Another one said. Everyone was talking about what familiar they would get, except for one pink haired girl, by the name of Louise Francoise Le Blanc De La Valliere, or rather her more commonly known name, "Louise the Zero".<p>

"Alright that's enough chatting." Professor Colbert said. The students quieted down and as their names were called stepped forward and performed the summoning ritual. The purpose of this ritual was for the students to summon their familiars, beings with powers similar to their masters, as well as be their companions. As each creature was summoned, the student that summoned it would kiss it, causing a rune to appear somewhere on the familiars body and symbolizing it becoming a familiar. Louise kept her composure at seeing some of the familiars that were being summoned; some summoned great, powerful beasts, whereas others summoned strange, unique familiars. She was determined to not be embarrassed _today _of all days.

"Has everyone had a turn?" Asked Colbert

"Well, not quiet." Kirche said, glancing at Louise. "Miss Valliere still has her familiar to summon."

"Oh yes! Louise, are you ready?" the professor asked the pink haired girl.

"Y-yes sir." She replied, suddenly very nervous

"Very well then, please perform the ritual."

"Yes sir."

She swallowed and walked into the middle of the crowd, she heard whispers from the crowd, they were speculating what kind of familiar she would summon, and one person even said she probably won't be able to summon one at all.

She took a deep breath. _OK Louise you can do this, summon a familiar that will make everyone regret ever mocking your magical ability. _She raised her wand, closed her eyes and focused wholly on the summoning spell. "My Familiar that exists somewhere in this universe or another, heed my call. My divine, beautiful, wise and powerful familiar, I summon you!"

She opened her eyes and thrust her wand in front of her. As she did, an explosion erupted from her wand, filling the courtyard with smoke. She felt something strange, she felt pain, sadness and anger all at once, and then it disappeared.

As the dust cleared, Louise's eyes went wide when she saw what she had summoned; all the other students froze in shock when they saw it as well. She had summoned a human, worse than that a commoner, he had messy brown hair and was wearing a white shirt with red buttons and simple trousers, with boots.

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><p>Hiato stirred, his vision was blurry and his body felt weird, it had felt as if he had been falling. He blinked to clear his vision and saw there was a blue sky above him. Suddenly he remembered, he was in the cave just a moment ago. He bolted upright, and was quiet surprised at what he saw. Directly in front of him was a pink haired girl surrounded by people. He looked around, <em>where am i?<em> Suddenly he noticed everyone was staring at him, and then he saw a red haired girl walk out the crowd and say something in a language he didn't recognise.

"This is more than what I expected from you after all that boasting you did yesterday." Kirche said mockingly. "To think you actually summoned up a peasant, I'm surprised you even summoned _anything._" All the students burst into laughter at this, and Louise felt her face go red.

"Well I have to say, this is a first, and I've never seen someone summon a human as a familiar before." Colbert said, trying to make it sound like an achievement, Louise however, thought the opposite.

"Professor, C-can I try the summoning spell again?" Louise asked, desperate to avoid having a commoner as her familiar.

"No, I'm afraid not, this is the most sacred spell that a mage can perform, it changes their whole life. You cannot _try again_, that would be blasphemy to the ritual. Like it or not, that boy is your familiar." Colbert said in a tone that offered no room for arguing.

"Fine..." Louise said, annoyed and upset.

"Now finish the ritual." Colbert said. Louise walked up to Hiato, who hadn't understood a single word that had been said this whole time. "What's going on here?" he asked, but he didn't know if anyone answered him, if he couldn't understand them, they probably couldn't understand him. The pink haired girl walked up to him, and started speaking again. "Oh pentagon of the five powers, bless this individual and make him my familiar." She lowered herself onto her knees and put her hand behind his head and started to pull it closer to her. Hiato wasn't sure how to react and suddenly her lips met his. His eyes went wide in shock. _What the hell? Now some random girl is kissing me? _Louise pulled out the kiss and stood up, suddenly Hiato's body got really hot, and his right hand started to hurt, he grabbed his right hand as a strange mark was burned into it. _Now what's going on? _He thought to himself, suddenly the feeling disappeared, and Hiato passed out.

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><p>Hiato woke up, feeling groggy for the first time in a few years. He yawned and stretched his arms. <em>Damn that was a good sleep, haven't slept like that in...<em> Suddenly he remembered everything that had happened, the strange people, the girl kissing him, the burning feeling, _was it a dream? _He shot upright and looked around; he was in a room he didn't recognise. _No, this isn't a dream _he told himself. _Well I guess that means wherever I am, the people here aren't trying to kill me... yet. _ He then noticed the Pink haired girl from earlier standing next to him, he looked up at her. He could immediately tell from her face that she was angry. _Uh-oh_. He said to himself, he slowly stood up.

Louise was furious. _Why!? Why a commoner, of ALL the things I could have summoned, I just HAD to summon a commoner! Why couldn't I at least have gotten something useful?! _She was screaming inside her head, and she walked to her cupboard.

"_Where am i? Why am I here? How did I get here?" _Hiato asked, but Louise did not understand any of them, she just heard gibberish coming from Hiato's mouth.

"He's so noisy! Can't he just shut up?" she sighed. "Wait I know, I'll use the silence spell!" she turned around and pointed her wand at Hiato, who stopped talking. "Ansur Ver ang" Suddenly Hiato felt like someone had just punched him square in the face really hard; he was blasted backwards into the wall.

"OW." Hiato yelled. "What was that for?"

"I wasn't meaning to- wait, I understood that!" Louise said to him.

"You did?" Hiato asked. Suddenly he could also understand Louise. _At least now I can figure out where I am. _Louise nodded. "You, what's your name?" she asked. Hiato felt relieved and nervous at the same time. _She doesn't recognise me, so where ever I am obviously people don't know about me, but what if they just know my name? Ah who cares, I'll tell her anyway, I can just make a break for it if she recognises my name. _He stood up and looked at Louise. "My name is Hiato Higurashi." He said. "Higurashi Hiato?" Louise repeated, sounding confused. _Phew, she doesn't recognise my name _"anyway, why am I here?" Hiato asked

"Well that's simple, I summoned you to be my familiar."

"Familiar?" Hiato asked, confused.

She sighed "I guess I'll have to explain it to you."

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><p>Deep in the academy libraries, Professor Colbert was flicking through pages of books, looking for a page of information he remembered about the strange rune that Louise's familiar had gained when she had completed the summoning ritual; he needed to know what it was. He finally found what he was looking for. "But that's impossible" he said, reading the text. "I'll have to inform the Headmaster of this at once."<p>

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><p><strong>There you have it, my first ever chapter of fan fiction, sorry if it's a bit long, not sure how long till I can put the next chapter up. Thanks for reading!<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello everyone and welcome to chapter 2 of my FOZ Fanfiction! Thanks to all those who read and reviewed the first chapter, I appreciate it a lot, and I'm glad you all enjoyed it. For those of you wondering, this Fan Fiction will have an original story, but for the first few chapters, I will stick loosely to what happened in the show. **

**For now, here's chapter 2!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own familiar of zero**

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><p>Hiato sat down on his bed made of hay, thinking about everything Louise had just told him. In more ways than one, he was happy he wasn't in Eurthina anymore, and he didn't have a burning desire to get back there. <em>I don't have to worry about the hunters anymore, that's for sure<em> he said to himself. He looked up at the pink haired girl who was his master, Louise- he couldn't be bothered to remember her surname; he had a few more questions for her.

"So summoning a human as a familiar is very rare?" he asked.

Louise nodded. "Rare, and looked down upon."

_Well I guess that means summoning something like me is probably never even heard of_ Hiato said to himself. "And all the mages in this academy are nobles?" He asked.

Louise nodded "Yes, only mages who are from a noble family may attend the academy." _Great so I'm surrounded by nobles_ he let out a sigh

Hiato found his situation very ironic, he had never liked nobles, in fact he thought he hated them, after all, they were the ones who had been trying to kill him for nearly his whole life of almost 18 years. Yet now he was a _servant _to a _Noble, _the class of people who, back in his world, were responsible for his parent's deaths. As much as he disliked the situation, he figured it was better than trying to survive in this world on his own.

As he stood up, he suddenly got an idea for how to make the best of the situation, and probably drive Louise mad. As he got on his feet, he mockingly bowed to Louise. "What does my _master_ request of me?" he said in a tone to match his bow.

Louise stood up straight, she didn't catch his tone. "Good to see my familiar knows its place." She said with an air of superiority. "You will take my laundry and go wash it, then afterwards dry it and bring it back here." Hiato bit his tongue and looked up, and saw a pile of clothes on the table. "Of course _master _it would be an _honour_ to perform this task for you." Hiato said, in a voice dripping with sarcasm. As he gathered the clothes and walked to the door, Louise realised the tone he was using, and she got furious.

"I will not allow a familiar to take such a disrespectful tone with me!" she yelled at him.

Hiato turned to face her and gave another bow. "My most _sincere_ and _humble _apologies _master_, I had _no_ intention of being _disrespectful_ to you, now if you will _excuse_ me, I must complete this most _vital_ task you have given me." Hiato got through the door and shut it before she could say anything else; he bit his tongue even harder and made his way down the stairs. He wasn't doing this just because he was Louise's familiar, he wanted some fresh air and this was a perfect excuse to get some.

On his way down Hiato walked past a boy and a girl, but barely took notice, all he noticed was the girl had brown hair, and the boy had blond hair. He continued downwards until he got outside. As he reached the bottom of the stairs he collapsed and started laughing for the first time in what felt like his whole life. _If I'm stuck as a noble's servant, I might as well try to enjoy myself_ he thought to himself, and kept laughing. _I can't believe she thought I was actually going to act all servant like._

He stopped laughing and looked around; he saw a fountain that had a bucket next to it. He walked over to it and then he remembered something _I have no idea how to wash clothes_ he said. He suddenly became very self-conscious; he couldn't remember the last time his clothes had been washed, he laughed again _no wonder they could find me so easily, I probably can be smelt from a mile away_ he laughed again then sat down next to the fountain.

After a while he stopped and looked around, he noticed a girl who seemed to be wearing a maids outfit, and he got up and ran over to her. "Hello." He said, smiling at her. The girl was surprised by the sudden introduction. "H-hello." She said

"Oh sorry, didn't mean to surprise you like that." Hiato said.

"N-no its ok." The girl said smiling. Suddenly recognition dawned on her face. "wait, are you the commoner that was summoned to be Louise Vallieres familiar?"

"Yeah, that's me alright." He said _Word about me sure got around fast_ he thought to himself

"My name is Siesta, and I have the honour of serving the nobles that live here." She smiled at him. _An honour huh, that's an interesting way to look at it_ Hiato thought to himself. "My name is Hiato Higurashi; it's a pleasure to meet you." Hiato smiled back

"Hey could you help me with something?" Hiato asked. "Sure." Siesta answered.

Hiato led her to where he had been washing Louise's laundry. "Mind lending me a hand? I kind of don't know how to do this properly..." He let out a nervous laugh, Siesta just giggled at him.

Their conversation continued, it was mostly just Hiato asking Siesta about the academy, and him watching her do the laundry. When she was done he gathered it up, waved goodbye to Siesta and climbed the tower. When he got to Louise's room, he was tempted to shout through the door and ask for permission to enter, but decided against it. He entered the room and was surprised to find Louise asleep. He put her clothes on the table and walked over to her. _She actually looks cute when she's not yelling her head off, or acting like a spoiled brat_ Hiato thought to himself. He lied down on his hay bed. Compared to what he'd been forced to use as a bed before, this was a massive improvement. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

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><p>The next morning Hiato went to breakfast with Louise, and wasn't at all surprised at how he got such a small amount of food. He was basically a servant, so expecting to be given large amounts of food was unrealistic. He took it and left the hall, going on a walk to explore the school. After a while he took a nap until the end of breakfast, he met up with Louise as she left the hall.<p>

"So _master_, must I accompany you to class?" he asked, in the mocking tone he knew Louise hated. She gritted her teeth and replied, "No, today there are no classes for the second years, instead we are supposed to spend the whole day communicating with our newly summoned familiars." Hiato suddenly got a sinking feeling in his stomach, and dread creped over him _A whole day just talking to her?_ He closed his eyes and made a silent prayer to whatever gods that existed that she would not spend the whole day talking to him.

"But I've decided that instead of communicating with you, you can help serve tea and snacks. I'm going to take the day to relax" _Oh thank God_ he thought to himself. He then thought about it and realised what he would be doing. Serving tea, to nobles. _Ugh_ he thought _maybe spending a whole day communicating with her isn't such a bad idea after all, it's better than running around serving a bunch of nobles_.

"Hello, Louise." A voice said. Louise and Hiato turned around to see a girl with red hair who had a large red skinned beast next to her. Louise frowned. "Hello, Kirche." She said in a spiteful tone. "What do you want?"

"Oh nothing, just to congratulate you again on summoning a commoner as a familiar." She chuckled. Hiato wasn't really paying attention and was focused on the strange animal next to her, Kirche noticed Hiato looking at her familiar. "Have you never seen a salamander before? They are quiet rare and powerful familiars to summon." She said proudly "but not nearly as rare as human familiars." she added, looking straight at Louise, who was starting to get annoyed.

_A salamander huh, looks different from the ones in my world_ Hiato thought to himself. The salamander looked up at Hiato and turned its head, it almost seemed to have a curious look on its face. _I wonder if it can tell what I am _he thought to himself. "I have seen a salamander before, quite a few actually." He looked at Kirche "I don't think any were bigger than yours though." He said. _Well not the normal ones anyway_ he thought.

Suddenly he was being dragged away from Kirche and her familiar, which still seemed to be looking at him. Louise dragged him around a corner then turned to face him, she was angry. "You may not talk to her again! And you may also not compliment her either!" Hiato took a step back. "I was just saying the truth; I wasn't meaning to compliment her." He said, he decided he would drop his act for now; it would be a waste of time.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Bring me some tea." She ordered, before storming off. Hiato sighed and walked after her.

While he was talking around the tables he bumped into Siesta again, she had a tray with tea cups on it. "Hello Hiato." She said smiling at him. "Hey Siesta." Hiato said, smiling back at her. "Why are you serving tea?" she asked. "Aren't the second years supposed to spend today communicating with their familiars?"

"Yeah they are, but my master decided she'd rather take the day to relax." Hiato answered.

"Oh ok then, well I'll see you later, I've got to get back to work." Siesta said and walked towards a table where students were waving her over.

"Same, see you later." Hiato smiled and was about to keep wandering around when he heard a voice. "Hey you, fetch us some tea." Hiato turned to see where the source of the voice. When he saw who it was he recognized him, he was the boy he had walked past last night and across the table from him was a blond haired girl. Hiato could tell immediately he wouldn't like this boy. He gave off an air of arrogance, his outfit was flamboyant, and Hiato guessed his personality was the same, he then noticed the rose he was holding _wonder who that's for_ he thought.

He went to fetch the tea, and as he put it on the table the boy said. "Ah, you must be the commoner Louise summoned, I'm not surprised she has you acting like a servant." He waved his hand as if to shoo Hiato off, and Hiato found it extremely tempting to punch him right in his smug little face. Hiato decided against picking a fight and walked away, as he was thinking what to do next he bumped into a brown haired girl.

"Um, excuse me I'm looking for someone his name is guiche, do you perhaps know where he is?" she asked him.

Hiato looked at her, she seemed familiar. "Well what does he look like?" He asked her.

"Blond hair, carry's a rose around with him..."

_Total snob?_ He felt like asking but didn't "He's over there." He said, turning and pointing to where the boy was sitting. "Thank you." The girl said, and hurried off. Hiato wandered around then suddenly heard shouting. He saw Guiche being shouted at by 2 girls; suddenly they stormed off in tears.

Guiche looked around, trying to find a way to hide the embarrassment, and then he saw the familiar who had brought him tea earlier laughing. "You!" he said, pointing his wand at him. "You have cause 2 lovely ladies great pain today, and I will not stand for it." Hiato stopped laughing and looked at him. "Me? I just told her where to find you, it's your fault they are crying." He took a few steps forward. "So what do you intend to do?" Hiato asked, curious.

"I intend to duel you." Guiche said, boasting an arrogant smile. "Aren't duels banned?" someone asked. "Yes, but not if it's between a noble and a commoner." Hiato chuckled. "I thought that a noble as snobbish as you would never dirty his hands in a duel." Hiato said.

Suddenly Louise charged out the crowd that had gathered. "Familiar! Apologize at once!" She shouted at Hiato and turned to face Guiche. "I apologize, my familiar can be very disrespectful sometimes, please do not take offense." She then glared at Hiato. "You will not accept this duel do you hear me?" Hiato opened his mouth to speak but Guiche cut him off.

"No offense was taken, and do not worry. The duel will be a quick one and I will not kill your familiar. I am of a family with a military history, whereas your familiar's parents were most likely a tavern wench and a drunken bri-"

"DO NOT SPEAK ABOUT MY PARENTS LIKE THAT!" Hiato roared at Guiche. Everyone took a step back from Hiato, and Guiche seemed to have lost some of his confidence. "Familiar, you do not shout at a noble!" Louise said, grabbing Hiato's arm. He turned to face her and she suddenly got a cold feeling down her spine.

Hiato's eyes were filled with anger, and his green irises seemed to have gained a faint glow. His face was one of anger and pain, Louise barely recognized him. "No, I will never apologize to someone who insults my parents. Never." He said in a voice full of anger. He turned to face Guiche, who almost seemed to shaking a little bit

"You want to have a duel? Very well then, let's have a duel." Hiato said, with an evil smile.

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><p><strong>And that's the second chapter! For those of you who think he's a bit too accepting of his new situation, and lacking a desire to go home is weird, you'll understand when I reveal his back story. I hope you all enjoyed this; I'll probably get the next chapter up in about 2-3 days. Also sorry for any errors or anything I've made, this whole thing is new to me. Thanks for reading!<strong>


	3. Chapter 3: the fight!

**Hello and welcome to chapter 3 of my FOZ fan Fiction! Thanks again to all those who have read and reviewed the precious 2 chapters, I really appreciate it, and I'm happy people enjoyed them.**

**For now, here's chapter 3!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own familiar of zero.**

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><p>Hiato turned away from Guiche, smiling, and started walking. He wasn't angry anymore but he had scared the noble with his sudden outburst of anger, but hadn't chickened out like Hiato was expecting him to. Hiato was to meet him at Vestri court, wherever that was. He then thought about Louise, she had been furious that he had insulted Guiche, even worse that he had accepted the duel. Hiato decided thinking about it wouldn't help, so he started to think about the duel.<p>

_I doubt he will fight me himself, he'll probably use magic_ Hiato didn't like that idea, he had been in lots of fights in his life, he wasn't a stranger to combat, he knew how to fight hand to hand and with swords, but he had no idea how to fight a mage. _Maybe I'll have to use it, if things get really bad_ he thought _I really hope I don't have to though_ He heard footsteps behind him, and then someone grabbed his arm.

"Familiar, where do you think you're going?" Louise asked him, she seemed to be less angry than a few minutes ago.

"To fight the duel." He said simply, looking at her.

"Well I forbid you from it! You will apologize to Guiche and cancel this duel!" She said sternly, but Hiato noticed something strange, she wasn't making eye contact with him.

"No." he said flatly. "He insulted my parents, and I can never forgive him for that. I must win this duel so that he learns his place." Louise looked at him and opened her mouth to say something when she saw the look in his eyes. It was one of pain, and sadness. Her mouth closed, and she wondered for the first time _just what kind of life did he have before I summoned him to be my familiar?_ _It mustn't have been a happy one _Louise thought to herself.

Hiato turned away from her and started walking; he saw a servant walking past and stopped them.

"Excuse me, but could you please tell me where Vestri Court is?" He asked

"It's over there sir." He said, pointing.

"Thank you, and please don't call me sir, call me Hiato." Hiato smiled at the servant and walked in the direction he had indicated. He noticed a large crowd was gathering where the duel would take place _I guess the whole school knows about it_ he smiled as he approached the crowd, the students turned to face him and parted so he could get into the middle of the circle.

Guiche was already waiting for him; he looked like he had completely recovered from earlier, Hiato could tell just from looking at him that Guiche was confident he could beat Hiato. As Hiato emerged from the crowd an arrogant smile spread across Guiches face.

"Well I'm surprised you came after all, I thought that maybe you would chicken out." Guiche taunted. Hiato smiled. "I could say the same to you." He replied

Guiche just laughed. "Let's see if you can still talk to me like that after our duel."

Hiato assumed a fighting pose, right foot behind him; he made fists with both hands and held them up at chest height. "Oh I won't need to; your pride will be shattered so insulting you would be a waste of my time." Hiato smirked.

Guiche laughed again. "Do you really believe you can defeat me? I guess I have to teach you a lesson about humility." He pulled out a rose, Hiato took a step back as he did, but didn't let his guard down _Looks can be deceiving_ he said to himself. Guiche waved the rose and a single petal fell off. It landed and a suit of armor emerged from the ground where the petal had landed. It stood a little taller than Guiche and had a lance.

"My name is Guiche the Bronze. I am an earth mage, so therefore your opponent will be the bronze golem, Valkyrie." He smirked.

_Figures, I guessed he wouldn't be fighting me himself _Hiato examined the Valkyrie, looking for a weak point. Without warning the Valkyrie charged straight at Hiato, holding its lance out in front of itself. Hiato was nearly caught off guard but managed to dodge the spear, jumping left. _Its fast, but it shouldn't be too difficult to dodge its attacks_ his left foot landed on the ground and he then jumped at the Valkyrie, swinging his left fist at its head. Its blow collided but didn't do much damage. Hiato jumped back as the Valkyrie swung its lance round, but the tip of it hit his hip, and he spun around and landed on his knee.

_Darn, that punch didn't do much _He stood back up _I'm guessing that thing must be hollow, if so I hope it can't just repair itself if I manage to break off its arm or destroy the helmet_, the crowd was watching intently, Louise was anxious, her familiar did seem to know how to fight, but she doubted he could actually defeat a Valkyrie.

The Valkyrie again charged at Hiato, this time swinging the lance towards the right side of Hiato's head. This time Hiato was ready for the attack, and he managed to duck under the lance, as he prepared to counterattack he noticed the Valkyrie swinging its other arm towards him, he couldn't block in time and the Valkyries fist connected with his face, knocking him backwards. The Valkyrie grabbed the lance with both hands and swung it downwards towards Hiato who barely managed to get out the way; he got onto his feet and jumped backwards away from the Valkyrie.

_Dammit, I should have noticed that sooner, at this rate that thing is going to beat me_ The Valkyrie turned to face him, and charged again, this time holding its spear out in front again, suddenly Hiato got an idea. Time seemed to slow down for Hiato as the Valkyrie got closer, Hiato seemed to stumble to his right; the Valkyrie saw this and held the spear out further. _It's now or never_ Hiato thought. As the spear was about to hit him, Hiato twisted his body to the right, turning his back to the Valkyrie, and out of the spears way. His left elbow was sticking out, and the spear passed in-between his arm and body, as the Valkyries elbow got level with his, Hiato trapped it under his arm, and using all his strength, twisted to the left and snapped the Valkyries arm off. As he was turning he put the rest of his strength into a punch, which he hurled straight into the Valkyries face. The force of the punch shattered the Valkyries head into pieces, and time sped up again for Hiato.

He stumbled backwards a little before regaining his footing and looked at the Valkyrie he had defeated, it was crumbling into dust _phew, and at least I only have to kill them once_ he let out a little smile before resuming a fighting pose. The whole crowd was shocked, even Guiche was surprised. However he overcame his surprise quickly and then shouted. "No matter, I have more where that came from! And this time they won't go easy on you!" He waved his rose and 6 more petals fell off, all forming Valkyries. Hiato quickly scanned them _6 on 1, I've had worse odds stacked against me, but that's when I was fighting people, not Valkyries _Louise was worried, she had been surprised when Hiato had defeated 1 Valkyrie, but there was no way he could beat 6 at once.

"Outnumbering me? That isn't a very honourable thing to do." Hiato taunted. He knew provoking Guiche was a bad idea, but he did it anyway. Guiche smirked. "You actually think you can defeat 6 of my Valkyries at once?" he chuckled.

"Sure I do." Hiato replied _If it gets bad I have no choice, I'll have to use it_ Hiato readied himself for the attack that he knew would come soon. He didn't have to wait long, all 6 Valkyries charged him at once, and he was only able to dodge the first few attacks. One hit him in the shoulder with its lance, one punched him in the stomach, one hit him in the face with the flat side of its sword, one punched him in the ribs, one hit him on the back with its lance and the last one hit his leg with the flat side of its sword. He managed to block a blow every now and then but was taking a beating.

He finally managed to escape from the Valkyries and was down on his knee, panting hard. In the crowd Louise was extremely worried, she could tell that there was no way he could beat all of Guiche's Valkyries. His whole body hurt, and he was also tired, the 6 Valkyries just looked at him with empty eyes. _Guess I have no choice_ he started to concentrate, familiar warmth flowed into his arms, and his eyes gained a faint glow. His arms tensed up, and he took a deep breath. Suddenly a sword appeared out the ground in front of him, it was a decent size, and it looked like it could be used one handed or two handed.

"If you wish to continue this duel, pick up that sword. If you do not, then just say to me that you apologize." Guiche smirked again, confident his enemy was beaten. Hiato breathed out, his arms relaxed and the warmth disappeared, only to be replaced with an aching pain, and the faint glow in his eyes faded. He stood up and looked at the sword _just what I needed; now I can easily beat those tin cans, and I can still keep what I really am a secret_ "You made a big mistake giving me this sword you know." Hiato said, smirking "After all, I am an expert swordsman."

He grabbed the sword with his right hand, and was surprised by what happened. His whole body suddenly felt lighter, almost weightless, he no longer felt tired, and the pain was gone completely _must be my instincts kicking in_ he thought, he then looked at his hand and saw the glowing runes. He had about a second to think about it before only one of the Valkyries charged him. As he turned to face it he noticed it seemed to be moving slower. He held the sword with both hands and as the Valkyrie neared him, it swung its sword downwards. Hiato parried the blow and then with a single strike bisected the Valkyrie. Its 2 halves fell to the ground and crumbled into dust.

1 down, 5 to go

There was an audible gasp from the crowd, and Guiche looked like he couldn't believe his eyes. He shook his head and the held his rose up in front of him. "Well, let's see how you handle 5 at once!" The remaining 5 Valkyries all charged Hiato, weapons ready. Hiato crouched, held his sword out to his left and just dashed forwards, reappearing behind the Valkyries, about a meter from Guiche, and his sword now on his right. As he stood up, Guiche stumbled backwards and landed on his rear, and the 5 remaining Valkyries all split in half and crumbled to dust. Guiche was in total shock, along with the crowd. Hiato rested his sword on his shoulder and looked Guiche in the face.

"Do you surrender?" Hiato asked him.

"Y-Yes!" Guiche said quickly, still in shock. There was an even louder gasp from the crowd now, and Louise could barely believe her eyes. Her familiar, who she had seen being beaten harshly, had just taken down 6 of Guiche's bronze Valkyries like it was nothing at all. She ran out the crowd towards Hiato, as she got to him she grabbed his arm. "Are you ok?" she asked, worried. Hiato just smiled at her and said. "Yeah, feeling just fine." He spun the sword around and planted it into the ground. As he let go of the hilt, his whole body seemed to turn against him. The pain came back and the exhaustion. He collapsed.

_Looks like whatever was nullifying my pain and fatigue has worn off_ he glanced at his right hand and noticed it wasn't glowing anymore. "Hey are you ok?" Hiato looked up at Louise who had a worried look on her face. "Don't worry; I've been through worse..." The last of his strength left him, and he passed out.

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><p>Hiato opened his eyes. He felt groggy, something he wasn't used to. He looked down and was surprised to find he was lying in a bed. <em>What the... <em>He thought to himself, and then he looked around, and got another surprise.

He was in the room he 'shared' with Louise, but more importantly, he was in _her_ bed. That's when he noticed her. She was asleep at her desk; her face was towards the window, and despite himself, Hiato smiled. _She really is cute when she's asleep like that_ The door opened and then a certain maid Hiato recognized walked in, carrying washed clothes.

"Siesta?" He asked, surprised.

"Oh Hiato, good to see your awake." Siesta said, smiling.

"Yeah about that, what happened?" He asked

"After you won the fight with Guiche, you passed out. It's been about 2 days, and Miss Louise here was keeping an eye on you the whole time, she even skipped lessons." Hiato looked at the sleeping girl and smiled again. _Maybe she isn't so bad after all._ Siesta put the Clothes down and looked at Hiato. "You're the talk of the school you know; even the servants are talking about the 'brave commoner who defeated a noble'"

Hiato rubbed the back of his head. "Well that's good, I guess." He smiled

Siesta smiled back and walked to the door. "I have to go, I'll chat later." She smiled as she closed the door. _Nice girl_ He thought to himself, and then he heard a moan and turned his head. Louise was starting to wake up, and when she looked at Hiato, she blinked twice before her eyes went wide.

"Hiato!" she yelled, and jumped up, ran to him and gave him a hug. "I was so worried, I was about to order a special elixir to try to help revive you, but it looks like I don't need to." Hiato wasn't sure how to react; he just sat with his arms in the air. "T-thanks." Was all he could manage to say _why am I getting a hug? _He looked at his master, and began to wonder if someone had hit her on the head with something large and heavy. Suddenly she realised what she was doing, and let go and stood up very quickly.

"W-well now that you're awake I have chores for you." She said, with a faint blush. Hiato sighed _I could get my leg chopped off and she would still want me to do the laundry_ he thought dryly. He climbed out of the bed, stood up and faced Louise "What must I do?" he asked.

"I want you to make the bed and then do the laundry, but first get changed." Hiato realised he wasn't in his usual outfit, so he made the bed, put his freshly washed clothes on and then gathered the laundry. As he got to the door he stopped, and turned to face Louise.

"Thanks." He said, meaning it.

Louise was surprised at this. "For what?" she asked quickly

"For keeping an eye on me while I was asleep, thanks a lot." He then smiled at her, Louise felt something catch in her throat as she saw it _He has such a lovely and sweet smile _she thought to herself, suddenly she realised what she had just thought and blushed.

"Well, I did it just because it's a master's job to take care of their familiar! Nothing more!" she said quickly.

Hiato just laughed. "Well, good to know you take your job seriously." He smiled again, and walked out the door, closing it behind him.

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><p><strong>And that's the third chapter! I tried my best at the fight scene; hope you all enjoyed it. I made this chapter a bit longer because I felt like cutting it at the end of the fight would make the chapter feel rushed and incomplete. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed. I would just like to add, I've gone back to school now, so unfortunately I will be focusing mainly on school, but if I have days where I don't get homework I will keep working on this fan fiction to the best of my ability! Thanks for reading and please review!<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**Welcome to the 4****th**** chapter! Thanks to everyone who has read this fan Fiction of mine. I hope you have all enjoyed it thus far. Anyway, onto chapter 4!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Familiar of zero.**

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><p>Hiato glared at the bucket of soapy water, almost as if he was trying to will the Laundry to clean itself. Even after watching Siesta do it, he still was very unsure of how to wash clothes properly <em>Ugh if I keep standing here she's going to walk down here and kill me for not finishing the Laundry<em> He sighed and sat down, getting to work. After about 5 minutes he was almost done and had managed to avoid damaging any of Louise's clothes, yet. As he was washing the last bit of laundry, a skirt, there was a stain that was stubbornly refusing to come out, so he applied more force, and accidentally ripped the skirt.

Hiato could feel there was something behind him on the verge of exploding, he turned around expecting to see a volcano had somehow sneaked up on him, and instead there was a short girl with pink hair standing there, who, in Hiato's eyes, was basically a mini volcano. With a temper. _Between facing her temper and climbing an active volcano, I think I'd rather go with the volcano._ Hiato opened his mouth to speak but he was cut off.

"How dare you be so careless as to damage your masters' clothes! No food for the rest of the day!" She shouted at him. Hiato was about to start to argue when she also added "And trying to argue will result in further punishment!" Hiato shut his mouth, and just turned away. _Jeez, can't she just be a bit forgiving? _Hiato sighed _Well I guess it's her way of getting me back for not listening to her and fighting the duel, and mocking her_ He put one hand to his forehead, then stood up.

"It was just one bit of laundry ok? And it was a mistake. Don't you think trying starving me for a whole day is just a bit much?" Hiato asked, trying to keep his voice calm. He was angry at her, but didn't want it to show. Louise looked at him. "A good familiar would listen to its masters orders and not try to argue!" she said, her voice rising.

"And a good master would forgive its familiar if it made a simple _mistake_." Hiato said, making eye contact with Louise. He knew if he didn't handle this right, he would probably lose what little food he got for about a week.

"Are you saying I am not a good master!?" Louise was practically shouting by now, _No I'm saying you're a shit master _Hiato felt like saying, but he knew if he did he would probably get no food for a month, so he decided on a different response.

"No, I'm not saying that, what I'm saying is, you're expecting too much from me." Hiato said, managing to keep his voice calm. "You're expecting me to be perfect, and do everything you say without question, but I'm only human." _First lie_ "whether you acknowledge it or not, I'm not perfect, and I do make mistakes. But what's important is I learn from those mistakes. An old Teacher of mine once told me that." Hiato then remembered him, Master Edward, and a wave of sadness washed over him, until he realised _Wait I just gave Louise a lesson about Philosophy, over a bit of torn Laundry, wow. _He suddenly felt extremely stupid, and looked at Louise.

Louise however, just looked at her familiar. She almost seemed to be even angrier that her familiar had argued with her, but as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. _But I'm not going to let him know that _she just relaxed, took a deep breath and looked at her familiar. "You will be coming to class with me, take the laundry to my room quickly then come back." Hiato sighed _I can't tell if I just won or lost _but he didn't pursue the argument further.

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><p>Hiato sat down next to Louise behind a desk in the center of the classroom. He was very interested to find out about the magic in this world, back where he was from; there were magical beings, but no actual magic. As the rest of the students got settled a rather plump looking women walked in.<p>

"Good morning class." The women said. "I am Chevreuse. Today you will all be learning about the different elements and levels of mages. Now can anyone tell me the different elements?" She asked, looking around.

A boy with brown hair put his hand up. "Yes?" The teacher asked. "Water, fire, earth and wind." The boy answered. "Very good, now does anyone know the different levels of mages?" a girl with blond hair raised her hand. "Dot, line, triangle and square." The teacher nodded "Very good." Hiato was listening intently, despite all that had happened to him, he was surprisingly intelligent and curious.

"The number of elements you can control affects what level of mage you are." The teacher said. Suddenly a red haired, dark skinned girl put her hand up, and the teacher nodded at her.

"Miss Chevreuse, what level are you?" Kirche asked. The teacher then drew herself up to her full height and announced in a voice full of pride. "I am a triangle earth mage." _So she must be really strong, that's just one level down from the best mages, no wonder she's a teacher _Hiato thought to himself.

"At this point I'm fairly certain that most of you only possess the ability to control one element at a time, is that correct?" Everyone nodded, but then Kirche stood up. "There is one student who can't even control one element, and has a record of zero success." She said mockingly.

Louise felt everyone looking at her, but she simply ignored them. "Isn't that right, Louise the zero?" Kirche taunted, and Louise felt her anger rise, but didn't show it. The teacher cleared her throat and continued the lesson, but Louise felt that someone was still looking at her. She then looked at Hiato who had a strange look on his face; it was almost one of... Sympathy. This made her even angrier.

After class Hiato was walking behind Louise, not saying anything. _So she can't use magic properly, and because of it, everyone picks on her, and she doesn't have any friends. I guess that's why she treats me like dirt, because she needs something to take her anger and frustration out on._ As he was thinking about this, he decided to ask her something.

"So they call you "Louise the zero" because every time you try to do magic it doesn't work?" He asked. She stopped. "Well maybe you're just a late developer, and soon you'll be able to do magic properly, or perhaps you may not have much talent." Louise started to shake from anger, now even her familiar was making fun of her.

"So you agree with them?" She asked, her anger still building. "I never said that, I'm just stating what I know and what I think is the case." She then snapped and yelled at him. "Who do you think you are!? You are just a lowly familiar and you dare make fun of me!? You probably don't even know what it's like to be in my situation! That's it, no meals for a week!" She yelled, with tears in her eyes. "And you will be sleeping outside!"

Hiato's jaw hit the floor _is she serious!? I was just trying to talk to her about it and she goes and does that?! Does she want me to die? _ Then he got angry. _I don't know what it's like huh? You have no idea how easy you've got it, you just have to worry about bullying, I had to worry about getting my head chopped off _He gritted his teeth, and then he decided that was it.

"Ok then, I'll do that." He said bluntly. "I can sleep outside and get no food and in a few days I'll have died from either starvation or the cold." His voice was emotionless, and Louise was taken aback at his tone. "Then you'll be known as the master who let their familiar die, and everyone will make fun of you even more." His face was blank, emotionless. He then did a mocking bow. "Does my _master _have any orders for me?" He asked, still using the same flat tone.

Louise was Shocked _how can he talk about dying in such a casual way?_ She again wondered just who here familiar was. "No, just return to my room." She said. Hiato simply turned and walked away. As he left she remembered the look he had given her in class, it wasn't just sympathy, and it was also one of understanding. He understood her situation, and she felt bad for shouting at him. _No he is just a lowly familiar; I shouldn't accept sympathy from him! And I shouldn't feel bad for shouting at him either! He must know his place she_ nodded her head, but couldn't get what he had said out of her mind, and the way he had said it. She started to wonder if she should apologize _No I will not apologize to him!_ She said in her mind. She shook her head and walked off before she could think about it more.

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><p>Hiato was lying on his hay bed outside Louise's room. His stomach was growling but he ignored it. It was a cold evening but Hiato couldn't feel it at all. He sighed <em>I guess I kinda did say all that stuff in a way that seemed insulting, probably should have thought it out first<em> He sighed _I was also kinda bluffing about dying, I can handle a week without food no problem, and the cold doesn't really bother me _He closed his eyes but before he could fall asleep he heard footsteps and a familiar voice.

"Mister Hiato?" Siesta asked.

"Siesta?" Hiato was surprised. "What's the matter?"

"Well I was sent by the head chef to fetch you, but why are you outside?" she asked.

"Long story short, I'm mad at Louise, she's mad at me, it's a happy balance." He said dryly _why would the head chef want to see me? I haven't tried raiding the pantry yet_ He stood up. "Well, let's see what he wants."

The two of them chatted on their way to the Kitchen; Siesta told Hiato how her duties were going while Hiato explained why he had been sleeping outside Louise's room. When they got to the kitchen, Siesta introduced Hiato to the head chef Marteau. "Greetings!" he said, with a warm smile on his face. "I am the head chef here, and a commoner just like you." He patted Hiato on the back. "All the servants are, so you can relax." There was another 10 chefs in the kitchen, and they all cheered.

Hiato smiled, happy to know that he and Siesta weren't the only commoners at the Academy. "So why did you send Siesta to fetch me?" He asked.

"Well, we wanted to thank you for sticking it to that uptight noble Guiche, so feel free to eat the leftovers from dinner." He pointed to a table behind Hiato, whose eyes went wide. The table had several dozen plates on it, all with delicious looking food on them.

"I can eat all that?" he asked, eagerly. "Sure! Anything for our sword." Hiato sat down behind the table and started eating; as he did the sound of about 11 jaws hitting the floor was clearly audible.

Hiato almost seemed to inhale the first plate of food. And the second. And the third. The chef's eyes (aside from Marteau, who was just laughing) and Siestas went as wide as saucers as they saw the rate at which Hiato was eating. Plate after plate was cleared of food, and Hiato looked as though he was somehow eating faster and faster, stuffing as much food into his mouth at once as he could. After about 3 minutes all the plates were empty and Hiato let out a satisfied burp.

"MAN that was great! Compliments to the chef." He said, smiling at Marteau, who laughed. "Good to see our champion has a great appetite." He then walked over to Hiato. "Anytime you're feeling hungry, feel free to drop by and I'll give you anything I can spare." He held out his hand, and Hiato shook it. "Deal" They both smiled.

Afterwards Hiato was walking back to Louise's room. _Haven't eaten that much in years, I think my table manners have somehow gotten worse_ he laughed and started to climb the stairs. As he got to the floor where Louise's room was, he was surprised to find a salamander waiting there. As he got into the hallway it looked up at him.

_That's Kirche's familiar, why is it outside? _He wondered _Maybe its run off_ He thought to himself. It nudged him in the leg, and walked past him to the stairs he had just climbed. He quickly figured out what it was doing. _It wants me to follow it so it can take me to Kirche, why would she want to see me? _Hiato was cautious, he had already made his master mad enough and didn't want to piss her off anymore. He shook his head.

"Sorry, but tell your master I don't want to see her." He lied back down on his hay bed, and the salamander started to walk towards him. Suddenly the door swung open, hitting the salamander and sending it flying across the hall way. Hiato sat up, very confused as to what had just happened, he looked up to see his pink haired master standing in the doorway. She seemed to have a look of relief on her face when she saw him. She peeked around the door and was surprise to see the salamander, and suddenly she grabbed Hiato by the shirt and threw him into the room, slamming the door.

_She's stronger than she looks_ He thought, rubbing his head where it had made contact with the table. He looked up at his master, who had the strangest expression on her face he had ever seen. He was curious to see what would happen next. "What is the matter, _master_?" he said in the flat tone he was now using with Louise

Anger briefly flashed across her face. She then breathed out then looked Hiato in the eyes. "I am sorry about my behaviour earlier, and the punishment I gave you was unfair. It is lifted, but only on 1 condition." She had a serious look on her face _OK, I seriously need to find out who's been thwacking her on the head, and then start paying them. _"Ok, what's this "condition"?" He asked, but Louise asked him a question instead of answering.

"Why was Kirche's familiar out there?" Hiato shrugged.

"Don't know, best guess she wanted it to fetch me for, some reason." Louise's face twisted. "You are not to go anywhere near her, is that understood?" Hiato was a bit confused.

"Why?" He asked.

"Because her family and mine are long standing rivals, and I refuse to let my familiar become her pawn." Hiato felt even more confused. "What are you talking about? And is that the condition?"

This time it was Louise's turn to be surprised. "Haven't you noticed?" She asked.

"Noticed what?" Hiato asked, still confused. _So that means he doesn't... _She breathed a sigh of relief. "Nothing and the condition is you do not pay more attention to other girls that you do to me." She said with a serious look on her face.

Hiato thought she was joking, until he saw the look on her face, and burst out laughing. "What's so funny?!" Louise demanded. She was getting angry, her familiar was laughing at her, and she didn't know why. Hiato calmed down and looked at her, and then asked. "Are you serious?" He had tears on his face from laughing so hard. "Afraid I'm going to fall in love with someone and then leave you without a familiar? Or is there another reason?" He smirked at her.

Louise suddenly blushed, and shook her head. "N-no, it's just that you should naturally pay more attention to me that anyone else!" She said glaring at him. Hiato just laughed and stood up. "Alright, I understand. Although I can promise you, I won't fall prey to Kirche's charms."

He stood up. "I'm going to be honest with you, I don't like nobles, in fact I probably hate them." He saw the look on Louise's face was a mix of anger and shock. "But despite the fact I may hate what you are, but not necessarily who you are, I actually owe you my life." Hiato looked serious now, and Louise just kept listening. "Back in my world, I was an outcast; I had only 3 friends, and was hunted ruthlessly by the king and his nobles, who wanted me either dead or turned into a slave. I had managed to stay safe for nearly 7 years on my own, but I knew I was running out of time. Each year the hunters got better and better, and each escape got closer and closer. If you hadn't summoned me to be your familiar, I would most likely have been captured or killed the next time the hunters found me." He breathed out. "So that's why I hate nobles."

Louise was in shock. _Hunted for nearly 7 years? An outcast? And if he'd been caught he would either face slavery or death? _Louise just looked at her familiar, then remembered what she had said earlier that day to him _I said he probably didn't know how it felt to be in my situation, but now I realise he probably knows what it's like better than anyone else_ Louise then remembered his reaction to Guiche insulting his parents, but she decided against asking about it.

Hiato had a solemn look on his face; he was remembering everything that had happened to him, from the day his parents died to the day he was summoned to this strange world. "So now you know, I still don't like nobles, and I'm not sorry for how I treat the other students but..." He looked at Louise. "I do know the nobles here are different than the ones in my world, and I am a bit sorry about the way I've been treating you, but even though I owe you my life, it is going to take a while for me to get over my feelings of resentment towards nobles, but I will try." He stood up and walked outside to fetch his hay, and then put it down next to Louise's bed, he then turned to face Louise with a smile.

"Well anyway, we best be getting to bed _master._" Louise had a look of annoyance flash across her face, but noticed he said it in a more playful and joking tone, rather than a mocking tone. "What time must I awaken you tomorrow?"

"Not so early, its void day tomorrow so I want to take you into town and get you a weapon to defend yourself with." She yawned and climbed into bed. _A weapon huh, that ain't a bad idea_ Hiato thought. He lied down on his Hay and closed his eyes.

"Hey, Hiato?"

His eyes shot open and he looked at Louise, a look of surprise on his face. He pinched himself to make sure he hadn't fallen asleep. "That's the first time you've used my name." Hiato eyed Louise suspiciously. "Yeah, is something wrong?"

"Why were you an outcast?" she asked

Hiato sighed. "Sorry, but I can't tell you." He looked at Louise. "It's just every time I told someone back in my world, they would immediately call the guards to arrest me, or run away in fear." He looked back at the floor. "I'll tell you later, when I'm more sure of what your reaction will be." He lied back down and closed his eyes.

Louise on the other hand just stared at her familiar. _Just what is he? _She had a feeling inside her, burning to know what he really was, but she would respect his privacy... for now, she would find a way to get the answer out of him. She lied back down on her bed, and as she drifted off to sleep, she had a smile on her face as she realized something.

Her familiar could be more amazing than anything that's ever been seen before.

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><p><strong>And that's chapter 4! In case it isn't obvious (in which case I am a horrible writer) the parring will be Louise X Hiato. Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and the part about Hiato's past. I apologize for any errors or mistakes I made, I'm still getting the hang of this. If any of you have noticed anything I'm not doing good or if there's just a big glaring mistake I've made somewhere that I missed, please write a review and tell me, I'm trying to make this story the best I can. Anyway, Thanks again everybody for reading, and I will see YOU in the next chapter, bye bye!<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello everyone and welcome to chapter 5 of my Fan fiction! Thanks again to everyone who's read up to this point and reviewed; I'm honestly amazed at how many people have actually read this thing. In case it isn't obvious, I've decided each chapter is going to be slightly longer than the previous one. That way I can get more into each chapter. Now on we go to chapter 5!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own familiar of zero.**

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><p><em>They were standing by the door, smiling at him, their features just blurs, but he could still see their smiles. He had tears in his eyes, he knew what had happened. They had been found, after all this time, and now they were going to stop him from being captured or killed as well. He didn't want this; he just wanted a normal life, now they were going to die, leaving him all alone.<em>

"_Hurry Alice, leave now. We will keep the soldiers busy while you escape with Hiato." The women said. She then smiled at him. "You've grown up so much; I'm so proud of you." He just kept crying "NO NO please! Don't go!" he shouted. The man at the door was also smiling. "We have to; it's our job to keep you safe, to make sure you can keep on living. Don't worry; we will meet again one day." He just kept crying. He was fighting against the person carrying him, trying to break free. He didn't want to escape; escape meant he would live in a world where everyone hated him, just because of what he had been born as. He wanted to die along with them._

"_N-no! I don't want to go!" He pleaded. The man and women just smiled. "You must, it is the only way you can survive." The women said, and the man nodded. There was a banging on the door and he stopped struggling. As he did he was carried across the room to a trap door. As he was going down he looked at the 2 of them one last time, they still had smiles on their faces. "Goodbye Hiato, we love you." They said in unison, and Hiato started crying again, and then the trap door slammed shut._

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><p>Hiato woke with a start. He sat up and looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw he was in Louise's room. <em>It was just a dream<em>. It had been a while since he had dreamed about that day, but it still wasn't any easier for him to handle. He could feel tears in his eyes, and he wiped them away. He stood up and looked at Louise. She was still asleep, and Hiato smiled. It was still fairly early in the morning, and Louise had said he was not to wake her until the 8th hour of the morning. Hiato checked the clock that was in Louise's room. He had just less than 30 minutes until he was supposed to wake Louise up. He looked at her again. _She still looks cute when she's sleeping, and she's also pretty. _Hiato blinked when he realised what he had just thought, and he shook his head. _No no no! I can't think that! She's a noble! And my master! I can't like her! _Hiato kept shaking his head, trying to clear it of these thoughts. _Exercise will help, maybe then I'll stop thinking like this. _

Hiato left the room and made his way outside. He had decided, since he was no longer on the run, he might as well get some training done. While he'd been on the run, the only exercise he got was running, now that he was staying in one place, he decided he might as well build up some strength so he could better defend Louise. When that thought popped into his head, he immediately shook his head. _No I'm training to get stronger so that if anyone comes after me, I won't have to run anymore. _He nodded at this and turned his mind to the task at hand

For starters he decided to run one lap around the school. He managed it in pretty decent time, and did another 2 laps. After that he started to punch the air like he was attacking people, and dodged invisible blows. This was his favourite method of training, taught to him by his martial arts teacher. After about 10 minutes he sat down for a break. _I need something to practice my sword skills with; they are getting a bit rusty._ A quick glance around told him no object in his immediate area would qualify as a sword, but he was distracted by someone calling his name.

"Hey Hiato!" A girl he recognized shouted as she walked towards him.

"Hey Siesta, good to see you." He stood up and smiled at her.

"Thanks it's good to see you too." She said, smiling back. "So what was that you were just doing?"

"Oh that? Just some training I'm doing until I have to wake my master. Figured I might as well keep in shape, after all I am eating grand feasts whenever I visit the kitchen." Hiato laughed.

"Good to see that, but I'm guessing it's more than just wanting to keep in shape right?" She gave Hiato a look that made him blush.

"D-don't be ridiculous, why else would I be training?" Hiato asked, laughing nervously.

"Maybe you want to protect Louise?" she asked, smiling. At that moment, Hiato blushed a little.

"Well yeah, that's obvious I'm her familiar, it's my job to protect her." He said quickly. "Sorry, but I've really got to go, don't want to face an active volcano today." Siesta just had a look of confusion on her face as Hiato ran back to Louise's room. _Why am I acting like this all of a sudden? Did I suddenly just start liking her? _He wondered, then realised something. _It's because she actually used my name, and treated me like a person. Most people would have just backed away and demanded to know what I really was, but she asked. She could have demanded it as my master, but she asked. _He reached the door to her room, and sighed. _I'll tell her soon, I just need to find out one more thing about this world._

He opened the door and walked inside. He smiled when he saw Louise was still asleep. He walked over and shook her until she woke up. "Hey rise and shine." He said.

Louise sat up and yawned. Hiato threw her clothes at her. "So where are we going today?" He asked.

"A small town nearby, it's a quick visit, just to get you a weapon." She stood up and got changed, Hiato turned around as she did. After she was done they walked down the tower and started to make their way to the front gate but were intercepted by Kirche. As she saw Hiato she grabbed him in a hug.

"Oh Hiato, it's so good to see you. You were very rude to me; you ignored my invitation last night." She wined, pressing herself against his arm.

"Invitation? Your salamander just showed up out of nowhere and basically asked me to follow it. It's not exactly an invitation you know, it's not like I can understand it if it's trying to talk to me." _Well that's a lie_ "And would you kindly stop pressing your bust against my arm." Hiato pulled away from Kirche, and noticed Louise had a smug grin on her face.

"That's right Kirche, stay away from my familiar." She said, walking up next to Hiato. Kirche just laughed. "Oh please, I'll have your familiar wrapped around my finger before you know it, after all, men don't like women as flat as a field." Kirche laughed, and Hiato could feel Louise get angry. "Also, he won't want to stay a familiar to someone who's a total failure." She laughed even louder, and looked at Hiato. "Come on darling, just forget about her and spend all your time with me, I won't treat you like a slave." She opened her arms as if expecting a hug; Louise was on the verge of exploding from anger.

Hiato put a hand on Louise's shoulder and looked at Kirche. "Well if she's a total failure how did she manage to summon me? I know she's never succeeded in casting a spell before, but if she was a total failure I wouldn't be here now would I?" Louise looked at him, and she felt pride swelling up in her, her familiar was defending her. "That's right Kirche, see you're wrong, I'm not a zero." She said smugly. Kirche just looked at her.

"Ok you're Louise the one then." She then laughed. "How about minus one? Because summoning a mere human is probably worse than failing the summoning ritual." She laughed again, and then looked at Hiato, and her voice turned seductive again. "But you're not just an ordinary human: you're the best man alive." She said.

Suddenly Hiato burst out laughing. "You first insult Louise for summoning me and then compliment me in the same breath? You're pathetic, but you were right about 1 thing, I'm not an ordinary human." He then gave her a serious look. "Give it up, no matter how hard you try: you won't be able to get me to leave my master. I was summoned here to be her familiar and to protect her. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm not the kind of guy who would just walk out on a friend." He turned around and started walking. Louise gave Kirche a mocking look and then went after her familiar. _I don't care; he will still be mine _Kirche said to herself.

They got to the gate and got on horse that were waiting for them. Louise was sitting in front, Hiato behind her. During the trip to town, Louise was thinking about what had happened, her familiar had defended her, and called her his friend. Then she thought about what he had said "_I'm not an ordinary human_". She started to think about that. She realised what she had thought last night before falling asleep could be true. She suddenly got excited, but a little scared at the same time. _He could be some kind of shape shifter or a monster of some kind_ _but_ _whatever he is, I'm going to find out_. She nodded her head

They arrived at town about 3 hours later and stopped to have lunch. Louise decided to give Hiato some proper food, which he promptly devoured very quickly. To avoid running out of money, she decided against giving him more food, and they started to look for a weapon's shop. They eventually found one and went inside.

"Good morning miss, how can I help you?" the shop owner asked.

"I need a sword for my familiar." She said. "The best you have." At this the shop keeper grinned and went behind the curtain. Hiato looked at Louise.

"Ya know I don't think getting the best sword will be necessary..." He started but Louise just shot him a look. The shop owner reappeared, holding a large gold sword. "Here it is my best piece." Hiato took the sword in his hand and swung it around a little.

"How much?" Louise asked.

"300 gold pieces." The owner declared.

Louise's face fell. "300? You can buy a mansion for that!"

"And it would be a better use of money than buying this sword." Hiato said. Louise and the shop owner looked at him; he was looking at the sword. "It's too heavy, so it would slow down whoever's using it, unless they were strong enough to handle the weight, and secondly, it's made out of gold, which is VERY fragile, meaning this thing will break as soon as I swing it against another sword too hard." He handed the sword back to the shop owner. "Sorry, but for a warrior this is no good, I need a real weapon."

Suddenly a laugh could be heard from the corner of the shop. "You hear that? That's a real swordsman there, he ain't some stupid noble who's gonna believe everything ya tell him!" Hiato turned; the voice was coming from a sword in one of the barrels. He was surprised, but not as much as he would have been had he seen this when he first arrived in this world. "A talking sword?" He asked, walking over to the barrel and pulling the sword out. It was old and rusted, and the cross guard had lost its colour.

"Yeah that's right! I'm the talking sword Derfflinger, but you can call me Derf." Hiato lifted the sword and swung it around several times. He had a satisfied smile on his face. He then turned to the shop owner. "How much?"

"100 bronze pieces." The owner replied. "Normally I wouldn't sell stuff that cheap, but he's been a pain in my arse since the day I found him, so I'm willing to give him to you cheap." Hiato looked at Louise, who had a surprised look on her face. "I'll take it." He said, smiling. Louise just looked at the sword, and then sighed. "Fine, you're the swordsman after all." She turned to the shop owner and started to sort through her money.

"All right!" Derf yelled. "Finally I'm getting out of this shack and I can get back to being a sword again!" The shop keeper spun around. "You shut your mouth! Don't call this a shack! It's a very well maintained building!" Derf laughed "Still a shack in my eyes." Hiato looked at Derf. "Say wanna be partners?" He asked. "Sure thing, Partner!" Derf replied, and Hiato nodded. Louise looked at them and sighed _I hope I don't regret this_ She walked towards the door. "Come on, let's go." The shop owner threw Derf's sheath at Hiato who caught it and sheathed Derf, he then slung him over his back and walked out the door after Louise.

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><p>When they got back to the academy, it was already late evening. Louise had Hiato do her Laundry. He didn't mind, it would be a chance for him to clean Derf. After he was done cleaning Derf and doing the laundry, which he was quite good at now, he noticed something; he hadn't seen Siesta since he got back. <em>Wonder where she's gone<em> Hiato shrugged _Maybe she has a day off, I'll ask the chef later_ He took the laundry up to Louise's room, put it down, then made his way over to the kitchen.

As he walked in, he could tell Marteau was cooking something good, and he was suddenly aware of how hungry he was. "Hey Marteau, mind getting me something to eat? Im starving." Hiato shouted across the kitchen, and took a seat at his usual table. The head chef laughed. "You're always hungry, so I always have food ready!" The chefs and helpers all helped carry plates of food to Hiato's table, who promptly started devouring them as each one arrived. Once he was done, and after a satisfied burp he decided it was time to question the head chef.

"So where's Siesta gone?" He asked.

"She's not working here anymore." Marteau said his voice suddenly more serious. "She has been taken by Count Mott to be his servant, and many rumours say he may make her his mistress." At this Hiato shot onto his feet. "WHAT!?" He yelled in shock. Despite not being a noble, and not knowing a lot about them, he knew exactly what it meant when a noble made a woman his mistress "She doesn't have a choice, her family needs the money."

_I have to save her, I don't care, she's my friend, I won't let some asshole noble do what he wants with her _He looked at Marteau. "What can you tell me about this Count Mott?"

"Count Mott is a Noble who lives around here, his only real duties are serving as an occasional messenger for the palace, otherwise he just sits at his estate and does nothing." Marteau gave Hiato a serious look. "He's extremely arrogant, and treats anyone lower than him like dirt, even nobles who have lesser titles are treated like peasants, and he sucks up to nobles who have higher positions and titles than him." Hiato was nodding, taking this all in. "Also he's a triangle mage." Hiato stopped nodding at that _That's going to be a problem, dammit guess this time I really have no choice, but only as a last resort_ "Thanks Marteau, do you know where his estate is?"

Marteau shook his head. "Sorry, no idea." Hiato nodded and started to walk towards the exit. He reached it just as Marteau called him. "Wait, you aren't planning to go get her back are you!?" Hiato looked at the head chef, and just grinned.

"You bet, she's my friend, I have to save her." He nodded to the head chef and walked out. The sun was really low in the sky, and then Hiato's conscience kicked in.

_This is an incredibly bad idea. I could get killed, or worse Louise could find out and get mad at me _Hiato chuckled as he made his way up the stairs, he would ask Louise where Mott's estate was, make up a lie to get out the room, then go save Siesta _Unless his Estate happens to be on the OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY. In that case... I'll go anyway. _Hiato opened the door to his room, and as he did Louise turned to see him, she was still in her school uniform.

"Where have you been? You missed supper." She asked

"Sorry, got caught up talking to the head chef, and I didn't miss supper, the chef gave me plenty of food." He chuckled. "Don't worry I'm not about to starve to death." He smiled, and Louise just got an annoyed look on her face. "I was wondering why you were spending so much time wandering around; I thought you were chatting to that maid girl." At the mention of Siesta, Hiato's smile faded a little, and then he looked at Louise.

"Why would you think I'm chatting to her? Would you be jealous if I was?" At that, Louise's face went red, and she looked away. "No, I'm just checking to see if you're obeying my command and not giving more attention to another girl that you are to me."

"Don't worry I'm not." He took a deep breath. "Where is Count Mott's estate?" He asked.

Louise was surprised by this question. "Why?"

Hiato sighed, he would have to tell her, but only half the truth, he would lie about why he wants to know "Siesta has been taken there as a servant, and apparently he wants to make her his mistress." Louise seemed a little surprised by this. "I'm just curious as to where it is so I can go and visit her." Louise eyed him suspiciously.

"His estate is to the north of the academy, about half an hour by horse back. If you plan to visit her, you better behave." She glared at him to reinforce her point.

"I will, I will." Hiato said innocently. He then walked over and grabbed Derf, and walked towards the door.

"Familiar, where are you going?" Louise asked. "Just to give Derf another wash, I won't be long." Before she could ask anymore he went through the door, closed it, then slung Derf on his back and left the tower.

"You're going to save that girl aren't you?" Derf asked.

"Yeah, so what?" Hiato said back. "If you don't want to come I can leave you behind."

The sword just chuckled. "Nah I'm fine with it, In fact I'm glad, been a while since I've knocked some heads around."

"Well I'm not planning to kill anyone, just knock them out, got it?" Hiato asked the sword. "Got it." It replied

Hiato exited the academy on the north side and started running. Running to the estate would be no problem; He could run for 2 hours straight, and only feel minor fatigue.

When he got to the estate the sun had disappeared and the moons were out. _Louise will be on her way to find me, I don't have long_. The house was massive, but he had seen bigger. He crept along the bushes that marked the perimeter of the estate, and saw a gate with 2 guards. As silently as he could, he crept up on one and knocked him out, then quickly drew Derf and bludgeoned the second one unconscious. He passed through the gate, the yard was mostly vacant, and made straight for the main house.

He burst through the main doors to find he was in a large hallway, and saw a man wearing a very flamboyant outfit standing on the other side of it. "Who are you?" He demanded. Hiato drew Derf, and simply said. "A friend of Siesta's, now give her back!" The count laughed, and simply waved his arm. "Guards." Suddenly about 3 men appeared from nowhere and surrounded Hiato. _2 on the left, 1 on the right, take the left first, right second._

The one guard on his left swung his sword down on Hiato, who parried it and then smashed him in the face with the butt of Derf, he then swung around and brought the sword down on the second guard who barely managed to block, but Hiato just head butted him and then whacked him on the head with Derf's blunt side. The third guard lunged at Hiato, sticking his sword forward. Hiato parried the blow and just punched the guard in the face. Afterwards he turned to face the count. "Now return Siesta to the academy."

The count just looked at him, and then smiled. "You're better than I thought." He chuckled. "I propose a duel to determine the girls fate, if I win, I keep the girl, if you win, I will let her go."

"Deal." Hiato said, and pointed his sword at the count, who laughed.

"Tell me your name and who you are, or else I won't release the girl." Mott said, smiling arrogantly.

"I am Hiato, and I am the familiar of Louise Valliere! And friend to Siesta!" He was ready to fight.

"Ah, you must be the human familiar I've heard about. I am Count Mott, and I am a triangle mage who specialises in water magic, and soon I will send you back to the academy, but not without a few scratches." He smiled and waved his wand, summoning water out of the glass in his hand, and forming them into spears of ice. _Not good, well here goes _Hiato concentrated, and started to feel the same tingling feeling flow through him, his eyes gained a faint glow, and he then felt his skin get a little warmer. _It worked, but won't last long_

He charged at Mott, who fired a wave of ice spears at him. He dodged by jumping to the left, and as he landed kept running towards him. The count fired another wave which Hiato jumped out the way of, but as he landed he saw the count had saved 1 spear. He smirked. "It's over, peasant boy." The spear flew towards him, and as it was about to reach him it melted in mid-air and the water it was made up of splashed harmlessly against his skin. Mott took a step back, and his eyes went wide "I-Impossible..."

Seeing his chance, Hiato stood up and ran towards Mott, who was still baffled. Hiato jumped in the air, and Mott tried to summon up some more spears, but as he held his wand in the air, Hiato sliced it in half. The force of the blow knocked the count backwards, and he stumbled over.

"Yield, I yield!" He shouted, suddenly cowering. "What do you want?" He asked, peeking through his arms at Hiato.

"First off, I want you to send Siesta back to the academy; secondly I want you to give all the gold you have to Siesta's family." He pointed Derf at Mott. "All. Of. It." He said slowly. The count nodded, and then called a servant to go and fetch Siesta and tell her everything that had happened.

At that moment Louise, Kirche and Tabitha charged through the front door, expecting the worst, only to find Hiato standing over the Count, who appeared to have wet his pants. "Oh uh... hey." Hiato said, putting a hand behind his head and smiling sheepishly.

"Hiato!" Louise yelled, and ran across the hall, giving him a big hug. Once again Hiato wondered who was this mysterious person that was clubbing Louise really hard on the head. The hug lasted about 3 seconds, and then Louise broke out of it, blushing, but furious. "H-How dare you... Lie to me... and go running off to a noble's estate... all for some servant girl?!" She glared at him, and Hiato subconsciously took a step backwards. "S-sorry?" He stammered out. Before Louise could say anymore, Siesta walked in.

"Hiato?" She had a look of surprise and relief on her face. "I heard what happened, why did you-"

Hiato cut her off. "It's because you're my friend, and once I heard what had happened, I knew I couldn't just let some rich pompous nobleman take advantage of you, I knew I needed to help you." He smiled. "Now come on, let's go back to the academy, I'm sure all of the other servants are missing you-" Hiato was cut off as Louise grabbed his ear and dragged him off.

"In future you will inform me of things like this you plan to do, and you will not do them! Are we clear?" she said in a very angry tone. "Y-yes ma'am." Hiato replied, amidst yelping's of pain.

Siesta just smiled, she was happy. She had a friend, and as Hiato was dragged off, she placed her hand over her heart.

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><p><strong>And that's the 5<strong>**th**** chapter! Hope you all enjoyed it, sorry for the late update but with school I (unfortunately) will be only able to publish 1 chapter a week, I kinda rushed this so I could get it done, sorry for any errors, or anything and thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello everyone and welcome to chapter 6! Thanks again to all those who have reviewed this, I really appreciate it. Anyway, like I said at the end of the last chapter, I will most likely only be able to put up 1 chapter a week due to school. Also I am planning a crossover of FOZ and something else; I still need to decide on what it will be of, but for now, on with chapter 6!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own FOZ.**

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><p>Hiato opened his eyes, his whole body felt tired. He sat up and stretched, yawning as he did. He sighed; he knew exactly why he felt like this. Last night when he had gone to save Siesta, he had been forced to use some of his power in his fight with count Mott, and as always when he used some of it, it drained his energy considerably, as noted by how he fainted shortly after Louise, Kirche and Tabitha, a small girl with blue hair that seemed to be one of few words, had arrived. He could barely remember anything, all he did remember was waking up to see a clear night sky above him, and Louise looming over him, he then slipped in and out of consciousness until they got back to the academy, where one of the teachers had managed to restore his energy a little bit so he wasn't tittering on the edge of blacking out. What followed was first another hug from Louise, then a scolding, an explanation from him, and then more shouting. Hiato seriously wondered how long Louise could shout for without taking a breath.<p>

He shook his head, that wasn't important, what was important was his current state. All his life, whenever he had used his powers, even for short periods, it had left him drained. His shoulders sunk at this, he knew he was weak. To everyone else, he seemed strong, but he was weak. He knew this because his parents had been able to use their powers like it was nothing, but he had always struggled. He then realised something and chuckled. _I'm the last of my kind, and I've spent my whole life being chased because of what I am, and the power I have, but that which people fear about me, I can't even control. _He sighed, and then stood up.

Turning to face his sleeping master, he was deciding the best way to wake her up. Despite all Hiato had been through, he could still be immature, and he wasn't afraid of Louise threatening to take his food away. He started to run through his options. _Tilt the bed and make her fall out? No I don't have enough energy. Bucket of ice cold water to the face? No, she'll probably be awake by the time I get back up here. Hmm._ He couldn't think of anything good, so he sighed. He instead decided on something boring, he started to poke her in the face on her cheek. After about 5 pokes she opened her eyes and yawned. Hiato kept poking her, and then Louise shook her head, and then sat upright.

"FAMILIAR! STOP IT!" she roared at Hiato, whom she slapped in the face, sending him into the wall. Hiato again was taken off guard at just how strong she really was, when she was mad. He stood up, holding the side of his face. "Jeez, I just woke you up, now your yelling at me for things you _told _me to do?" He asked in a somewhat mocking tone. Louise just glared at him, and then got out of bed. After she was changed she turned to face him.

"Today when I go to class you shall remain outside with the rest of the familiar, are we clear?" She said in a tone that offered no argument. "Sure" Was Hiato's reply, he didn't really care if he did or didn't accompany her to class. To him, it would be time to just relax and try to get some strength back.

Once they were near the tower in which the class was taking place, Louise turned around to face him. "Stay over there with the rest of the familiars." She said, pointing to where a large group of different animals were in the courtyard. "Of course, _master_." He said his usual tone, and despite herself, Louise let out a tiny smile. After Louise walked off, Hiato walked into the courtyard and surveyed the familiars. There were lots of them, from common beasts to strange and exotic ones. As he walked past them, they all looked up at him, recognising what he was despite his outward appearance. He found that, despite that, they all seemed to be acting friendly towards him, and Hiato smiled. As he turned his head though, his expression turned from one of happiness to one of total shock, and he stopped moving.

_I-impossible, i-it can't be... _Hiato's mouth was open, and his eyes as wide as plates. One of the familiars summoned was a _Dragon._ Hiato blinked about 6 times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. The dragon was looking around, and then made eye contact with him. _Impossible, it can't be... a blue one? _The dragon didn't break the eye contact, from a simple glance it could tell what he was. Hiato regained control of his face and then made a serious expression. He walked over to the dragon, and as he got within arm's reach, he stopped. The dragon was fairly big, but not massive. It had blue scales, and green eyes. Hiato reached out a hand and placed it on the dragons head, and then closed his eyes. All the other familiars just looked at the 2 of them; they understood what was going on.

Hiato opened his eyes. "I see..." he said _so she just has blue scales, that's it. She doesn't have the power of a legendary blue dragon. Obviously there must be differences in this world..._ He looked again at the dragon, and smiled. "My apologies, I mistook you for something else, no offense." The dragon simply moved its head closer to his, his hand still on top of its head. "It is a pleasure to meet you Sylphid, or should I say, Illococoo?" Suddenly the dragon reared its head back, and its eyes seemed to go wide. Hiato just laughed. "I'm sorry, I suppose I did read a bit much, but I suppose you did the same?" The dragon then nodded, and moved its head forwards only a little, and Hiato let out another laugh. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone, in exchange you can't tell anyone what you know about me." The dragon seemed to pause for a moment, before rubbing its head against Hiato's chest, and Hiato just rubbed its head. "Hey, I have an idea..."

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><p>Louise walked out of class, glad it was over. It had been another lesson of Professor Kaita telling them of how great wind magic was and not actually doing any teaching. She sighed, everyone else felt the same. As she got to the entrance to the courtyard with all the familiars, she looked around for Hiato, and then got angry when she couldn't see him.<p>

"Dammed, familiar, he can never just do what he's told, can he?" At that moment, Kirche and Tabitha walked up behind her.

"Something wrong Louise?" Kirche mocked. "Your familiar finally decided to run off?" Louise turned to face her arch rival. "Either that or he's off talking with that servant girl, ohhh what was her name?" Kirche said, and smiled when she saw Louise start to shake from rage. "At least my familiar obeys me, Flame come here!" she shouted into the courtyard at her salamander, which she quickly found. But then what happened shocked her, her familiar just stood still. Everyone was having the same problem; their familiars were ignoring their masters. "What is going on!?" Kirche asked, frustrated at the fact her familiar was ignoring her. Even Tabitha, who had tried to summon Sylphid about 4 times, was confused. That's when Louise noticed it.

All the familiars were looking at something in the sky.

Louise turned her head to see what the familiars were looking at, and as she did, her jaw hit the floor.

Up in the sky, just close enough so you could make them out was a dragon, and someone _riding _the dragon.

It wasn't the dragon that was shocking, it was Tabitha's familiar so Louise recognized it, but who was riding it, THAT was what shocked Louise.

It was Hiato.

Her familiar, was _riding _Tabitha's familiar, and was even more shocking, was how comfortable he looked, like it was second nature to him to ride a dragon. They were doing stunts; ups downs, lefts rights, and tricks that made Louise's eyes nearly bulge out of her head.

"Louise what's wrong?" Kirche asked the little pinkette, who gave no reply save poking Kirche then pointing upwards. Kirche looked up, and her jaw also hit the floor. "T-tabitha, you're familiar..." The blue haired girl looked up, and the book she was holding in her hand slipped between her fingers and landed on the ground. One by one the rest of the students were turning their eyes skyward and seeing the 2 familiars in the sky, all having equally shocked expressions.

Meanwhile Hiato was having the time of his life. The feeling of pure bliss he was experiencing was something he had forgotten, and thankfully he found that riding Sylphid was still perfectly natural to him. The kind of tricks they were executing were easy to Hiato and Sylphid, but to the large crowd of onlookers, of which he was completely unaware, they were incredible.

_Time for something risky. _He thought, he leaned forwards, and Sylphid understood immediately, they turned to face the academy, and then Hiato noticed the crowd. _Oh crap. Well I guess it's a bit hard to be covert when doing this, but I might as well do something to impress them. _Sylphid leaned forwards towards the crowd of students and familiars watching them. She gave a few more flaps of her wings to gain some height, and then gave one last flap to send them towards the ground, and then she folded her wings close to her body, and started to gain speed.

Hiato felt adrenaline flood his body, and he started to grin like a complete idiot. He hadn't felt this happy in a long time. He wasn't at all worried what would happen if they screwed up, not the least bit scared of missing and going _SPLAT _on the ground. Instead he was waiting for the moment when Sylphid would use the momentum from the dive to swoop upwards, he knew that she wanted to get as close to the ground as possible before turning upwards, and she knew he wanted the exact same thing.

Down in the courtyard, people were starting to panic. The dragon was getting closer at an incredible speed, and people were starting to whisper about what it was doing, was it attacking, or doing something else, everyone wondered, But Louise, Kirche and even Tabitha were still transfixed by what was going on. Louise didn't know why, but she had faint feelings of happiness and bliss, and she also felt that there was no danger of her familiar and Tabitha's crashing. The dragon was nearing the ground, and the familiars weren't moving, confident that the stunt would succeed.

Hiato narrowed his eyes, waiting for the right moment. He was extremely close now. The excitement was almost unbearable for him, and then the seconds seem to take hours, everything slowed down. The ground got closer and closer, and at the last possible moment, he yanked on the dragon's neck. Sylphid spread her wings, and giving one hard flap, pushed herself upwards, doing a near 90 degree change of course. At that moment Hiato couldn't take it, and he exploded into a fit of punching the air and shouting. The dragon stabilised and flew around the academy a few times before slowing down and landing in the courtyard with the rest of the familiars.

Hiato leapt off, a massive grin on his face. He walked over to his master, who was completely dumbstruck at what she had just seen. "What?" He asked innocently. "Stop standing around with your mouth open like that before someone puts a foot in it." He walked past her and back towards their room. Louise slowly got a grip on reality, and turned around to watch her familiar walk off. Tabitha walked up to her dragon almost as soon as it landed to check if it was ok, and she was surprised to find it was the happiest it had been in its whole life. _Just who is he? _The question rang through Louise's mind.

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><p>Headmaster Osmond turned from the window with a frown on his face. He had known that Louise's familiar was the legendary Gandalfr, which meant by extension she was a void mage, but the skills he had just displayed were mind boggling to say the least. The old man sat down. The fact he had managed to ride the dragon was an achievement in itself, as dragon familiars usually only let their master's ride them, and the skills he had displayed were far beyond any dragon riders Osmond had seen in his long life. He wasn't aware that Gandalfr also possessed the ability to ride beasts like dragons as though it was second nature, but Osmond suspected something else.<p>

He had studied the boy closely while he was on the dragon, and noticed how he seemed to be able to direct the dragons movements without ever talking to it, suggesting a mental link of some kind, but that would be impossible, as only masters can have mental connections to familiars. He sighed, this mystery wouldn't be solving itself anytime soon.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. "Come in." The headmaster said. The head of his old friend, Professor Colbert, appeared in the door way. "Ah Professor, good to see you, I was meaning to talk to you about something." "Likewise." The bald professor replied. They had received a message from the palace earlier that day, informing them that Fouquet the Crumbling dirt was in the area round the academy, and a large mound of earth had been found near the edge of the forest. Osmond had decided he was going to send someone out to find the thief, but that wasn't his concern for the moment.

Osmond told Colbert all about that he had observed, and asked Colbert if he knew anything Gandalfr possessing the ability to ride beasts like it was natural. "Can't say I have, and to be honest, that's what I came to talk to you about, what happened in the courtyard." Osmond nodded, and looked at him. "I think we should ask him about what happened." Colbert nodded in agreement.

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><p>Back in Louise's room, Hiato was sitting down on his hay bed, leaning against the wall. Louise was standing in front of him, in line with the end of her bed, with a look of amazement on her face. He sighed, which made Louise jump, and then Hiato chuckled.<p>

"W-what's so funny?" Louise asked.

"The fact you're standing there with about a million questions, and can't seem to get started, while you're probably the loudest person I know." He looked up at her, and then Louise, for the first time, properly examined his face.

His green eyes were the most remarkable thing about his face, they weren't bright, and they had a dark tint to them, and looked like they belonged to someone older. His face had a tired look to it, and seemed to be very worn out, no matter how much he ate and slept, he still looked tired nearly all the time, and looked much older, she didn't even know how old he really was, he had never told her.

"Yes, I would like to know, how were you able to do that? Only dragon riders are capable of controlling a dragon, but none I've heard of were capable of what you just did." Hiato let out a chuckle "Dragon riders huh, well I guess that means this world really is different." Louise had a confused look on her face. "What do you-" Hiato raised a hand to cut her off. "I know how to do that because my parents taught me when I was a kid, and also because, you know I just happen to be-" before he could continue, there was a knock on the door, and Hiato stood up. "I'll get it." He walked over and opened the door, and was surprised to see Professor Colbert, who promptly walked in.

"Professor Colbert?" Louise and Hiato asked at the same time. "Why are you here?" They chanted in unison, and the Professor laughed. "My my, it sounds like your bond is getting stronger." Hiato glanced at Louise, and when he saw she wasn't looking, made a "pretend to throw up" face. "The headmaster wants to see both of you, for a matter of great importance." Louise swallowed, and Hiato was nervous. _Was it because of what I did?_ He walked across the room to pick up Derf, the talking sword still fast asleep. "Well then, let's go." He said

They were in the headmaster's office, and strangely enough Kirche and Tabitha had decided to tag along. Louise was fuming, because Kirche was clinging onto Hiato, who looked rather displeased with the situation. "Now that you're all here, let us begin." Old Osmond said. "Tell me, mister familiar, how is it that you possess such a great skill for flying a dragon?" All eyes in the room were on Hiato now, who scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Well it's because my parents taught me." He said, looking at the old man. He was rather surprised by this. "Your _parents_?" He asked. Hiato just gave a quick nod. "How?" Osmond asked, and at this moment Hiato got nervous.

If he told him the truth, he would then let about 6 people know what he really was, so instead he decided to lie. "My parents had a pet dragon; I used to ride him all the time." He lied. Osmond's eyes narrowed at this, he could tell Hiato was lying, but he could also tell from looking at Hiato it was a subject he didn't like to discuss often, so Osmond just left it. "Ok then, I suppose that makes sense." He said, and Colbert gave him a look, which heavily implied the Professor thought the old man was finally losing it. He just glared back, and Colbert said nothing.

The headmaster then moved on to the matter of Fouquet the crumbling dirt. "We received an order from the palace ordering for her arrest, and unfortunately I cannot send out any teachers to deal with the matter." Hiato looked down, and he saw a little mouse. It appeared to be creeping towards Louise, and he figured out what it was doing. It glanced up at him, and he shot it a look saying _take one step further and you die._ The Mouse froze in fear, and suddenly bolted back to Osmond's desk. "- if you're willing to accept this dangerous task." Osmond finished.

Hiato looked up, he had missed a good bit of the conversation, and had no idea what the old man was talking about. "I accept." His pink haired master said, standing upright. "I'll go along with it, can't let Louise get all the glory." Tabitha just looked up from her book and nodded. "It's settled then; the 3 of you will track down Fouquet and capture her, but will be accompanied by Miss Longueville." Hiato's mouth fell open. Was this man trying to get his students killed? From what little he heard, this 'Fouquet' is apparently a triangle class mage, and he knew that meant she was powerful, but here the headmaster was casually sending 3 girls who probably weren't even as half as strong to _capture her?!_

Hiato then let out a sigh; he guessed trying to argue would be pointless, but he still really didn't like this idea, even though he was one who had lots of bad ideas very often and usually went through with them anyway. Outside they met Miss Longueville who took them to a wagon, which promptly left for the forest. Hiato hated every second of the journey, as Kirche kept trying to flirt with him.

"Oh darling, why must you be so rude? I'm just expressing my feelings." She said for the 12th time on the trip. Hiato was certain that if they didn't get to where they needed to be, he would likely stand up and kick Kirche off the wagon. He could tell his master was getting furious at Kirche, but at least was holding it in because Hiato was resisting. Miss Longueville was a fairly young lady with long green hair; she always wore glasses, and was, in general, quite a nice person. Hiato chatted with her a little on the journey, but not much considering how Kirche was trying to become part of his arm. All the while Derf was just chuckling to himself, which annoyed Hiato even more. And Tabitha was just ignoring everything going on, and Hiato looked up to see Sylphid giving Kirche an unseen look of hostility.

Kirche pressed herself against him again, and a vein appeared on Louise's forehead. "Stop doing that to my familiar!" she roared at her arch rival. Kirche let out a sly grin. "Oh I'm sure your familiar enjoys it, right darling?" She looked up at Hiato, only to be greeted with a look that heavily implied he was planning to disembowel her if she didn't let go in the next 5 seconds. A sweatdrop formed on the back of her head. "O-oh okay dear." She let go of Hiato and leaned away, and Hiato promptly let out a sigh of relief.

"Were here." Longueville said. Hiato jumped off the wagon so fast, it was like he teleported. "You could have done me a favour and told me we were close, I wouldn't have minded running the last bit." He said, throwing a glance at Kirche. Louise smirked, but had her back to Kirche, she was happy her familiar wasn't a dog who would enjoy girls flirting with him and trying to seduce him, and even more happy that he seemed to hate Kirche just like she did.

They walked forwards a little, until a wooden cabin came into sight. "I'll scout the surrounding area to make sure she doesn't try to escape." The rest nodded at this idea, and Longueville made her way into the trees. Hiato drew Derf, and crept towards the house, taking each step as carefully and as quiet as possible. Years of sneaking around had honed Hiato's stealth ability to a level that most master thieves could only envy, and his reaction time was inhuman. He got to the front door, and slowly pushed it open. Louise, Kirche and Tabitha were surrounding the house in a triangle formation, cutting off any escape.

Taking a deep breath, Hiato pushed the door open and held Derf in front of him, looking around quickly. "All clear!" He shouted. He lowered Derf and walked deeper into the cabin. It had very little furniture, and was covered in cobwebs. He was examining the shelf on the other side of the room when he heard a scream. He immediately charged outside and was shocked to see a large, towering golem made of earth. "What the-." He started, before he looked down and saw where the scream had come from. It was Louise, the golem was looming over her, and she was pointing her wand towards the massive moving mound of earth, and she was shaking.

The golem raised its right hand into the air and swung down towards Louise. Without thinking, and at a speed that was inhuman, he bolted through the golems legs, grabbed Louise in the bridal position, and then ran as fast as he and managed to get away just before the golems fist hit the ground. As he slowed down, he looked down at Louise who he was carrying in his arms.

"Hiato..." She said, still shacking slightly.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!? Don't try to fight it, you'll just get killed, and that's the last thing I'm going to let happen." Louise blushed at his words, and was about to get angry when she looked into his eyes and for the first time saw something different.

Concern.

He was worried about her safety, and she knew he was right. He quickly threw her at Kirche, who was caught off guard and nearly dropped the pinkette, and Louise got annoyed. "Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" She yelled, in annoyance and fear.

"Making sure you're not in the line of fire." Hiato replied. "Don't worry, I'll handle this." Hiato charged at the first golem, which swung it's first at him. Hiato dodged easily, using the speed gained from his familiar runes. He slashed down, severing the hand, and jumped back. The golem didn't recoil from the attack, and simply grabbed his hand and slammed it back on. _Dammit, that's going to be a real problem if it can just pull itself back together. _

Hiato gritted his teeth and ran forward, the golem swung its fist towards him, and he dodged, cutting off its hand again, but this time landing on the arm and running up towards the head. There he carved chunks off of the golems head, which responded by trying to punch him off. He dodged the blow but then another fist came hurtling towards him and he was barely able to block it. That's when he noticed there was more than one. He flew through the air and landed on his feet, the first golem crumbled into earth, and Hiato smiled.

One down.

But his victory was short lived as another 3 golems had appeared, surrounding him. Louise, Kirche and Tabitha were all watching apprehensively, and Louise was on the verge of screaming out to Hiato to run away. Hiato was breathing heavily, taking the first one down had been tough, he still hadn't recovered from yesterday. Suddenly all three golems swung towards him at the same time, Hiato was barely able to dodge, and landing on a hand started to run up a golems arm, but then saw a fist flying towards him. He stopped and bought Derf up, but was holding it in his right hand, and as the fist collided, he felt a sharp pain in his right hand, and Derf was knocked away, along with him, but in a different direction.

He flew through the air and landed hard on the ground. He looked at his right wrist, it was broken, along with his hand, and he was struggling to avoid yelling out in pain. He held his hand close to his chest, it was bleeding too. Derf landed close to the trio, and at that moment Louise snapped.

"Hiato run away! Now quickly before the golems kill you!"

Hiato let out a weary smile. He knew he couldn't run, and suddenly he heard a voice, a voice he recognized, and then a women with green hair appeared on one of the golem's shoulders. "Blazing infernos that reduces all to ash, fires that consume all, create for me, an inferno to burn this man's soul from his bones!" Everyone's eyes went wide, it was Miss Longueville, and suddenly realization struck Louise, Tabitha, and Kirche. She was casting fire storm, the most powerful triangle class fire spell, and Louise's eyes went wide when she realised who the target was. Before she could say anything, before she could do anything, Hiato disappeared, enveloped in a huge column of fire.

"Partner!" Derf yelled out, Kirche and Tabitha were just in shock, and Sylphid let out a roar. Longueville had a wicked smile on her face.

Louise couldn't handle it, she felt the tears well up in her eyes, and she started crying, crying the hardest she had ever cried in her life.

"Sorry about my golem nearly killing you, Louise, it was a mistake on my part, not having enough control. I could have nearly failed my mission, but thankfully your familiar saved you." She then looked over at the column of fire.

"H-how could you!?" Kirche stammered out. "y-you're a member of the staff at the academy!" At this Longueville laughed. "Oh yes, I am, but I am also Fouquet, the very person you were sent to find. You all made my mission so easy, first off, don't kill the pink haired girl." She looked at Louise, who was still crying. "Secondly, deal with that troublesome familiar of yours, or rather, Gandalfr." Her smile faded a little. "I had been ordered to use a fire spell to kill him, and frankly fire isn't my natural element so it took a while for me to learn it. And to be honest, I don't like killing people. But orders are orders."

Kirche and Tabitha were sent into more shock. _Ordered to kill Hiato!?_ They looked at Fouquet. "And now capturing her will be so much easier, but there's one problem, I don't have any orders regarding you 2, so I guess I'll just have to kill you 2 as well. Don't take it personally, it's just I can't leave any witnesses." She smiled, and the golems began their advance forward.

Louise was crying harder now. Hiato had died, her familiar had _died _and she had failed to protect it. Now she was going to be taken captive, and founder knows what done to her. But even if she did escape, she'd be known as the mage who let her familiar die, she would be expelled from the academy, then her mother would marry her off to some rich noble and she would never have free will again.

But worst of all she will never see Hiato again. That was the worst part. Her familiar, who she had first thought to be the worst familiar she could have ever summoned, was in fact, she was sure of this, to be the exact opposite. But that didn't matter, he was dead, burned to ashes, and there was nothing she could do.

She then lifted her head up, looked to the sky, and let out a scream of one word, a scream of pain, anguish, and loss. One which even sent a shiver down Fouquet's spine, and even made her golem stop advancing.

"HIATO!"

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><p><strong>And that's chapter 6! Hope you all enjoyed, and like the cliff hanger (mwahahaha). Anyway, thanks for reading, and as always, I will see YOU, in the next chapter. Bye bye!<strong>


	7. Chapter 7

**Hello there and welcome to chapter 7! Thanks again to all those who have reviewed and read this, it means a lot. I had hoped to get this chapter up sooner, but my internet decided to not work for a few days, which really sucked. I'm really sorry about that.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own familiar of zero.**

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><p>Louise's whole body was shaking. She was crying even harder now. The scream she had let out had stopped Fouquet's advance, but Louise didn't notice. To her, the world was falling apart. Her familiar had died, and she had been powerless to save it. It just meant that, even after succeeding at summoning a familiar, she was still a zero, and incapable of doing anything. She lowered her head and wiped away the tears, and then looked at Fouquet, who seemed to be frozen to the spot. Louise didn't care why, because as she looked at Fouquet, her feelings turned from sorrow to anger. It was like she was a volcano on the verge of eruption. She started to shake from the pure rage building up inside her. Fouquet was the one who had killed her familiar, and Louise was determined to exact revenge upon her.<p>

Louise stood up, her body shaking more now. Kirche and Tabitha, who had been rooted to the spot in shock, snapped out of it when Louise stood up. "Louise what are you doing?" Kirche asked. Louise didn't hear her; she didn't need to hear her. All that mattered now was Fouquet. Fouquet also seemed to snap out of it, and her golem started to move. Louise looked at the large earthen construct, and without thinking lifted her arm, pointed it at the golem and yelled "EXPLOSION!"

Everyone was surprised by this, but Fouquet had the least amount of time to be surprised, as the golem which shoulder's she was standing on was suddenly obliterated, and the shockwave sent her flying through the air. Bits of rock went flying everywhere, and Sylphid came over to shield Kirche and Tabitha with her wings. Louise ignored the bits of falling rock, had she not been in a blinding rage, she would have been amazed at what had just happened. Instead, she was scanning for Fouquet, and quickly found her. Pointing her wand, Louise yelled out. "EXPLOSION!" again, but this time Fouquet was hit with a much smaller blast, which just sent her into the ground quicker. Fouquet managed to slow herself down before she landed, It was just enough to ensure that she wouldn't break a bone, but it still hurt.

She quickly ordered her remaining golems to gather around her, and she looked at Louise. The pinkette was breathing heavily, but still had a look of rage on her face. "EXPLOSION!" she yelled out again, but this time, nothing happened, and instead, she staggered backwards before falling over. Kirche dashed forward and managed to grab her before she hit the ground. Fouquet quickly made her way onto the shoulder of the closest golem, and decided to quickly summon another one. That made 3.

Louise was exhausted; she was breathing heavily, and could barely lift her arms. She managed to look up at Fouquet, who had an amused smile on her face. "Shame you didn't use that spell on me first instead of my golem, it would be over if you did." She let out a small laugh. "I really am sorry I had to kill your familiar, he seemed like such a nice boy, but orders are orders, now then, if you agree to surrender, I will not kill your friends." Louise tried to snarl, but was too tired.

"She won't give up! We won't let her!" Kirche shouted. Tabitha nodded, and both the girls got their wands ready. Fouquet just laughed. "Well then, if you want to join the familiar of zero, so be it." The golems started to advance, and Kirche and Tabitha prepared for a fight.

A fight Louise knew they could not win.

She had accepted her fate, she would be captured by Fouquet, and there was nothing she could do. Tabitha and Kirche could hold out for a little bit, but eventually Fouquet would best them, and Louise would be taken hostage. Her life was over in her mind, and she had resigned herself to that fate. She knew whoever Fouquet worked for would never let her go.

She looked over to the place where her familiar had been incinerated. The fires were still burning. She felt the tears well up in her eyes, and started to cry again, her head held in her hands. Fouquet smirked. "Don't worry, I really didn't want to do it, but as an act of kindness, I'll let you keep the ashes."

Louise didn't hear Fouquet's insult, instead she was replaying all the time she had spent with her familiar in her mind, and now regretted the way she had treated him. She had summoned him from a world where he had spent nearly half his life just trying to survive, and then tried to turn him into her servant and treat him like dirt, unaware of what he had been through. It didn't matter that he was her familiar, it didn't matter he was bound to obey her, he had been through hell, and even though Louise had been teased since she got to the academy about being a zero, it was nothing compared to what Hiato had been through, and she hadn't cared one bit for the suffering her familiar had gone through and instead made it worse.

The golems were getting closer; Louise could feel each step they took shake the ground. Louise looked at the fire once last time; she just wanted to see him one last time, just to see him, hold him in her arms and say she's sorry, and to treat him like a human being for once, not a servant. But she knew that would never happen.

What she didn't know was that Fouquet's firestorm was getting smaller.

And then she saw something that made her heart skip a beat.

There was a figure _standing _in the fire. Louise's eyes went wide, and she stopped crying. She didn't dare to hope, it could be a trick on Fouquet's part, some kind of last insult to Louise.

But that wasn't likely, and at that moment Louise noticed the size of the firestorm.

When it had been cast, it had towered over Fouquet's golems as a giant column of fire, now it was shorter than her golems, and getting smaller each second.

That was when she felt it.

It was a feeling of realization, of power once sealed away being unlocked, and that power was incredible. And there was a feeling of warmth as well, protective, soothing warmth. Louise looked at the figure again, and at that moment there was a break in the storm, revealing the figure, and Louise screamed out in joy.

"HIATO!"

"Last time I checked, that was my name." Hiato responded, with a smirk on his face. "Oh boy, this feels great!" Fouquet spun around, Tabitha and Kirche looked over, and they all got looks of pure shock on their faces. "I-impossible..." Fouquet stammered out, and Tabitha and Kirche were wide eyed. "Y-you should be dead!" Hiato leaned his head back and laughed. "Silly Longueville, or should I say Fouquet, didn't you know..." Hiato stopped laughing, and then looked at Fouquet, still with a smirk on his face. "...it's impossible to kill a dragon with fire?"

At that moment his arms became wreathed in fire up to the elbows, and as the fire cleared, it revealed his arms had changed. They were now slightly bigger, and covered in red scales with golden spikes sticking out the top just behind the wrist and running parallel with his arms up to just before his elbow. Each of his fingers became razor sharp claws, and then 2 wings sprouted out of his back. His clothes were still intact.

Louise couldn't believe her eyes. Her familiar was a _Dragon!?_ What kind, she was unsure, but she knew he wasn't an ordinary dragon, because he had transformed parts of his body to those of a dragon, but was still human.

Fouquet however panicked. She hadn't expected her spell to fail in killing Hiato, so she ordered her golems to stop advancing on Kirche and Tabitha and to deal with Hiato instead. At that moment the firestorm completely disappeared, and Hiato was still smirking. "I don't know how you survived my firestorm, but there's no way you can defeat my golems!" The golems practically sprinted towards Hiato.

"Kirche, Tabitha, take care of Louise and don't get involved, I'll handle this." Louise snapped out of shock and yelled. "You idiot, let us help, you can't take on 3 earth golems at once! It's a really bad idea!" Hiato just flashed her a cheeky grin. "Stick around; I'm full of bad ideas." Louise got really worried, and tried to get up when she just fell over, but was caught by Kirche. "Louise your too tired, don't try to move." Louise shot her a look of venom. "My familiar is going to fight and I'm going to help him!" Tabitha put a hand on Louise shoulder, and in a very rare moment said. "Don't worry, he will be fine." This shocked Louise AND Kirche. It was the first time they had heard the near mute say a full sentence. Louise looked at Hiato, and hoped he would be ok.

The first golem reached Hiato and swung its left fist towards him. Hiato countered by throwing a punch with his left arm. When the 2 fists collided, for a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then the golem's fist shattered and most of its arm up to its elbow.

(CUE EPIC MUSIC)

As the golem reared back from the force of the punch, Hiato braced himself, and then with a flap of his wings, flung himself towards the golem's head. He held his right hand out and made a fist, and punched straight through, obliterating the golems head. As he slowed down, he made a fireball in his right hand, and swinging around, hurled it at the golem. Upon impact the golem was completely destroyed.

Fouquet, Louise, Kirche and even Tabitha were amazed at what they had just seen, but Fouquet snapped out of it pretty quickly, and ordered her other golem to attack Hiato. It lumbered forwards and swung a punch with its right arm at Hiato, who dodged the blow with little effort, and conjuring another ball of fire in his hand, pressed it into the golem's fist, and then flew back quickly.

The golem's fist exploded, and Hiato landed on the ground. The golem tried to crush him with its left arm by trying to smack down with its palm onto Hiato, but the blow was dodged, and Hiato gathered fire around his right arm. He then spread out his wings, and leaped forwards, dodging past the golems arm, and stopped right below it.

"Dragon..." He pulled his right arm down, preparing to punch straight upwards. Spreading his wings and bracing his legs, he looked up, jumped, flapped his wings and yelled. "..FIST!"

As Hiato was yelling, he shot straight upwards through the golem, surrounded in fire, obliterating its entire upper body. As he got into the air he slowed down, opened his hand, gathered all the fire into a ball, and hurled it straight downwards, obliterating the golem. All the while, he had been relaxed, almost not taking the fight seriously, and he still had a smirk on his face. He turned to look at Fouquet, who seemed to be quiet scared of Hiato, and before she could run or order her golem to attack, Hiato generated 2 balls of fire and hurled them at the golem, obliterating it but not harming Fouquet.

She was thrown into the air, and Hiato flew straight towards her. Before she could react he grabbed her wand and snapped it in half. He then grabbed her by the collar and lowered her to the ground. As he landed he threw her forwards, and she landed on her stomach. She looked up at him with a mixture of fear and anger. "W-what are you?" she asked. Hiato chuckled. "Me? I'm just an ordinary familiar, that's all." He then looked at Tabitha. "Tie her up." Tabitha nodded and casted a spell to bind Fouquet's hands together. Hiato then looked at Louise.

Louise was just looking at Hiato, still amazed at the fact he was alive, and the fact of what he was. His appearance had changed, most notable his face had lost the old tired look it always had, and now seemed to be full of life, and looked a lot younger. His eyes had lost their dark tint, and were a much lighter and brighter green now and seemed to have a faint glow. His brown hair was also different; it had gained a slight red tint. But that didn't matter, because that was when Louise got up and ran straight at Hiato. "Hiato!" she yelled, before throwing her arms around him and nearly knocking him over. Hiato looked down at his pink haired master, who was crying into his chest and letting out muffled words.

"I-it's you... it's really you... your alive..." Louise said between sobs. "you... idiot... why didn't you run when I told you too..." Hiato had a surprised look on his face, but then it softened to a smile. He then put his right arm around Louise's back and pulled her closer, surprising Louise, and rubbed the back of her head with his left hand. Normally Louise would have pulled out the hug by now, but for some reason, she actually liked it. She felt safe, secure and warm in her familiar's arms.

"Because I couldn't have run, firstly because i couldn't have abandoned you; I would never be able to live with myself if I had. I could never abandon you. And secondly, my wrist was broken, so I wouldn't have been able to get up in time." Louise gasped, and then looked up at Hiato, who had a warm smile on his face. "Stop crying, it doesn't suite you, and you ruin your pretty little face when you cry." Louise went bright red at this, and then pressed her face into his chest. Hiato let out a laugh and rubbed the back of her head.

"I have to say, this is quite surprising. I honestly never thought I would see you cry, well not in sadness over me." Louise quickly looked up at Hiato. "I heard and saw all of it." Louise's eyes went wide, and she swallowed. Hiato just smiled at her. "I'm sorry. I was worried about telling you the truth of what I am, and because I was selfish and decided not to trust you, I made you cry, and I am truly sorry for that, Louise."

Louise opened her mouth to say something, but then she looked at Hiato's face. He was truly sorry, she could see it in his eyes, and then she felt her heart skip a beat and jump into her throat. She couldn't say anything, and was looking into his eyes. She tried to speak but no words came out her mouth, and she had a strange feeling. Her stomach felt like something was flying around in it, and her heart seemed to be extremely loud all of a sudden. Without thinking she started to lean closer to Hiato.

Suddenly Louise was snapped out of it when Kirche barged into Hiato and grabbed hold of his arm and pressed herself against him. "Oh darling, you're a dragon? Why my, we may be even more of a perfect match than I thought before." Louise got angry again. "Zerbst, what do you think you're doing!?" Kirche just looked at her with the look you would give to someone who you just explained something to and they asked you to explain the same thing again.

"Why, I'm talking to my sweetheart, the man who only has room for me in his life, right?" She turned to try to look longingly into Hiato's eyes, expecting a look of love from him, but instead got a look that implied he would set her on fire if she didn't let go. Louise was about to shout again when suddenly her legs felt extremely weak, and she fell over.

Breaking free of Kirche, Hiato managed to catch Louise before she hit the ground. Kirche got a worried look on her face and rushed to Louise. "Is she ok?" She asked in a panicked voice. Hiato just put his right hand on her forehead, and smiled. "She's passed out from exhaustion, she should be fine with rest, I'll take her back to the academy." Hiato picked her up in bridal position, and then spread his wings. Kirche quickly objected to this.

"No darling, she can go back with Tabitha, and you can fly me back inst-"Before she could finish, Hiato took off, and as he got into the air he shouted back. "Sorry, but I'd rather fly Fouquet back than you." Before Kirche, who had a very shocked look on her face, could respond, Hiato flapped his wings and set off for the academy.

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><p>She could feel cool wind blowing against her face, and two arms holding her, and the sound of flapping of wings. She stirred, slowly opening her eyes. She was looking up at a clear blue sky. She lowered her head to look at who was carrying her, and as she saw who it was she smiled.<p>

Hiato was also smiling, but for a different reason.

He was enjoying the feeling of flying, something he had only ever experienced when his parents had flown him around or when he had ridden Sylphid the one time, but flying with his own 2 wings was a feeling he could not describe.

He was unaware of Louise looking at him. To Louise, Hiato now looked like a completely different person. He seemed younger, more playful, more carefree and happier. It was like the fire had somehow changed his personality and his appearance. His face was one of joy, and while he did look more boyish rather than like an adult, he also seemed to be more handsome.

Louise blushed when she thought this and quickly covered her face. Hiato finally noticed she was awake and smiled. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty." Louise blushed even more at this, looked way and said. "Shut up." Hiato laughed. Louise looked at him out the corner of her eye. He had been teasing when he had said that, but it was different from before. He wasn't mocking her; he was just being playful now.

"Hey come on, don't be mad." Hiato said. Louise turned to look at him, and she was about to say something when she realised how exhausted she felt. She yawned and relaxed in Hiato's arms. "Hiato, how much longer until we get back?" Hiato looked at her with a sideways look. "About 10 minutes at our current pace, but we can get there faster." Louise turned to look out in front of them. The academy was on the other side of the field they were flying over.

"How long have you been flying for?" She asked.

"About 20 minutes." Hiato responded. Louise nodded and started to drift off. "Wake me up when we get there..." She said, just before falling asleep. Hiato smiled, he was impressed with what his master had done. He looked at the pink girl he was holding in his arms. _She's not a zero, if she was, then she would never have been able to destroy that golem, let alone summon me._ Hiato then looked at the academy that was drawing closer, and smiled. He was happy, something he hadn't been in a long time, and he was feeling that way for many reasons.

Firstly his dragon powers were no unlocked, meaning he was now a true dragonoid. Secondly, he had realised how Louise really felt about him after seeing all that she did, and thirdly... that was something he couldn't describe. It was a feeling that he hadn't felt in a long time, and it was hard for him to remember when he had last had this feeling. He shook his head; he would sort it out later.

He landed in the courtyard outside the tower, and as he landed he heard gasps and whispers from the other students in the courtyard, and felt many eyes upon him. He looked up to see old Osmond looking at him from out his office window. Hiato smiled at him, which seemed to surprise the headmaster. Ignoring the whispers around him, Hiato walked into the tower, folded his wings into his back, and changed his arms back to normal. He climbed the stairs, thinking over what the third thing was.

He eventually reached Louise's- no _their_ room and opened the door. He walked inside and closed the door gently. He then walked across the room and laid Louise on her bed, and then pulled the covers up over her. Looking down at her, he brushed her hair out of her face and smiled. He then looked at the window, the sun was only beginning to set, but Hiato decided he would call in early for the day. He turned around and walked to his hay bed, lying down on it as he reached it.

As he lay down and closed his eyes, he finally realised what it was he was feeling. It was something he had last felt over 7 years ago, just before his parents had died. It was something he had never imagined he would have felt about this academy, but now he knew better.

He had finally found a place that he would never have to run from, people who accepted him for what he was, friends who cared about him, people to take care of him and a place where he can actually fit in. It was something he had been searching for ever since that day; the day he had gone on the run, but that was over now. No more running, no more hiding, no more worrying and no more fear. He knew that some people in this world wanted him dead, but he also knew that there were people who would protect him and keep him safe.

Hiato then thought about Louise, despite all her arrogance and pride, she truly cares for him, and he owes her his life, for she saved him from death or imprisonment, and he would work hard to repay that debt. The old him, the one that was cynical and distrusting, was gone now. Hiato knew that Louise cared for him, and he cared for her. He would risk his life to defend her, without hesitation. He would protect her from whoever wanted to take her captive.

He smiled, he had found it. After all this time, all the running and hiding, after everything he had been through, he finally had one, he had found one, and as he drifted off to sleep, the word which he thought he would never be able to call any place ever again, echoed in his mind.

_Home._

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><p><strong>And that's the chapter! Sorry it's shorter than the last one, but I feel like where I've ended it is a good place. I Hope you all enjoyed learning what Hiato really is, but wait, there's more! (which I'll explain in later chapters te hehe) Anyway, thanks for reading, sorry again for the late upload, my internet was being an arse, and I will see you again in the next chapter! (which will be a lot longer, I promise)<strong>


	8. Chapter 8

**Hello and welcome to chapter 8! Thanks again to all those who had read and reviewed, and I'm glad your all enjoying it. I've decided I'm going to have a bit more of a comedic writing style in some parts, and I hope you all enjoy it. So with all that said, here's the next chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own familiar of zero**

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><p><em>Fire. All she could see was fire. It surrounded her on all sides, and was getting closer. She was looking around, panicking, trying to find a way out from the flames. The fire crept closer, swallowing the ground up as it approached. Louise then realised, there was no way she could escape, and she was going to die. At that moment, a figure appeared in the fire, walking towards her. At first she didn't recognize him, and wondered how anyone could walk through the flames and still be alive, the heat from them was almost unbearable, but then she saw his face, and she started to walk towards him. As she reached him, he wrapped his arms around her, and suddenly the heat from the flames was gone, and she closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around him.<em>

"_Hiato..." she whispered. Her familiar smiled; using his wings he shielded her from the flames. "Louise..." he responded. Louise was happy now; her familiar was here to protect her. The flames couldn't hurt her; nothing could as long as she was wrapped in his arms. She then looked up at him; her heart was beating faster now. "Hiato... I... I..." He smiled at her, as if he knew what she was about to say, and without thinking Louise started to lean towards him, and closed her eyes..._

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><p>Louise's eyes opened slowly, her whole body feeling slightly exhausted. Her vision was blurry, and she blinked a few times to clear her vision. She sat up and looked around. She was in her room, and when she looked to where Hiato slept, she saw he was gone.<p>

At that moment her dream and her memories of what had happened after they had managed to capture Fouquet came rushing back to her, and she went a bright red, and her heart started to beat faster. She shook her head very quickly, trying to clear her mind. How she had hugged him... what he had said... how he had hugged her back... the look she had given him...how she had nearly... nearly...

She somehow got even redder when she thought about that, and shook her head again. _I-I can't feel that way about him! He's just a... a familiar... _Louise stopped shaking her head at that thought, and thought about everything he had told her. He wasn't just a familiar, nor was he just a person. He was something amazing, something probably never seen before, someone who had lived perhaps the worst life imaginable, and she still wanted to think of him as _just _a familiar? She cursed herself for thinking like that, and decided it was time to stop treating Hiato like a slave, and instead like a person. After all, she was starting to fall in...

Louise went even redder (somehow) when she realised what she had just been about to think. But as much as she wanted to deny it, she knew it was true. He had saved her, and even more than that, he had stayed her familiar, despite being able to run away at any given moment. She then smiled. She knew he felt the same way too, she had sensed it when he had embraced her, but at the time she hadn't noticed.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by a voice. "Hey princess, good to see your awake, partner's gonna be happy about that." Louise turned her head to the right slightly, to see the talking sword Derf leaning against the wall next to Hiato's hay bed... something she suddenly felt bad about making him sleep on.

"Oh, you're here. Where is he right now?" Louise asked the talking sword.

"Outside, last time I checked. He said "she's going to be awake soon, and probably going to want to eat a horse" so he left for the kitchen, he must be bringing a large amount of food for you missy, you're lucky you've found such a nice guy." At that, Louise went red (again) and glared at the sword.

"What are you talking about?" Louise asked in a steely tone.

"The fact you love him, duh." The talking sword responded. At that, steam exploded out of her ears.

"I do not love him!" She yelled at the sword, who just laughed. "Course ya don't, if you did then you never would never had hugged him like ya did after he caught Fouquet, or even cried like ya did, or even tried to kiss him like ya did!" Each of these facts made Louise turn a brighter shade of red, and get angrier, and then she yelled at the sword.

"I was merely worried about him! It is natural for a master to be concerned about her familiar!" the sword just laughed in response. "Believe what you want missy, I know what I saw." The sword kept laughing, and Louise growled at it. She looked over at her window, which was open, and then got up. She might as well get changed, but as she got to her cupboard, a shadow was cast across the room from the direction of the window, and Louise looked to see what it was, and her heart jumped when she saw who it was.

"Good morning, you're up earlier than I expected." Hiato said playfully. The shadow was coming from his wings, which he had obviously used to fly up to the window. What did you think he climbed and had his wings out for fun? He was holding a box in his hands, and he flew into the window. As he landed he folded his wings in, and walked to the table, setting the box down and turned to Louise. "Feeling better?"

Louise nodded, and then looked at the box. "What's in there?" She asked

"Food." Hiato responded simply, looking at the box. "I figured you'd want something to eat once you woke up." At that moment there was a loud growl that could be heard all over the room... and it was coming from Louise's stomach. Louise went bright red, and Hiato chuckled, then without any provocation, walked forward and gave Louise a hug.

At first the pinkette was surprised, and blushed even more, and her heart started to beat faster. "It's good to see you're alright, I was worried about you, but I knew you'd wake up eventually." Louise got a lump in her throat, and hugged her familiar back, holding him tightly.

"C-can you promise me something Hiato?" Louise asked. Hiato was a little surprised at the use of his name, and blushed a little, but smiled. "Sure, what is it?"

"Can you promise me, never to do something like that again?" She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him, and he had an amused smiled on his face. "Sure, as long as you can promise we will stay out of danger." He said teasingly, and Louise just hit him on the arm. "Ow, that hurt." Hiato said, stating the obvious. Louise just giggled, which immediately made Hiato lean backwards and give her a worried look. _Ok now she giggling, this can't be good. _Louise looked up at his expression, and let out a small laugh. "What's with that look?" she asked.

"You're giggling, I've never heard you giggle, and frankly it's kind of scary." Louise just narrowed her eyes at him, and punched him again, this time on the chest. "What am I a punching bag now?" Hiato asked mockingly. Louise just shrugged and broke out of the hug, walking to the cupboard, and started to get changed. Hiato turned around, as usual.

"How long was I asleep?" Louise asked, as she pulled her shirt on.

"About a month." Hiato answered, and turned to look at his master. Despite mustering every ounce of willpower he had, he collapsed onto the floor in gales of laughter. Louse's expression had been the one someone would have if you had just told them offhandedly that you had run their dog over and were going to pay for a new one, but it changed to one of annoyance once Hiato hit the floor, and started to laugh like he had just heard the greatest joke in the world. "S-stop laughing!" she demanded at once, and glared at her familiar.

After Hiato calmed down, and managed to get up, he looked at Louise. "To answer your question properly, you were out for a day, and before you have a panic attack, you were excused from class, and apparently didn't miss much anyway. Fouquet was brought back to the academy, sacked, and sent to the palace for trial. Tabitha and Kirche came in to check how you were doing, and brought Derf back too, sorry about forgetting you partner." The sword just chuckled. "It's fine partner, you had little missy to worry about." Louise calmed down slightly, and then about a million and one questions exploded into her mind, all about what Hiato really was.

"What are you? How did you do any of that? How did you survive that fire spell? Where do those wings come from?" she asked without thinking. Hiato held his hands up. "Slow down, slow down, slow down, yeesh you can fire questions off faster than I can eat a meal. Speaking of which, I'll tell you after breakfast." Louise nodded, but then was about to ask something else when she was cut off. "Classes don't start for another hour, so don't worry."

They sat down and ate their food, and by ate I mean Louise stared gawk eyed at how Hiato ate nearly half the food in the box in about 5 seconds, and then started eating before he ate everything and started to chew on the box. Hiato finished his breakfast in about 20 seconds, but Louise took a little longer, and they were done, Hiato cleared his throat.

"So you want to know what I am, how I did what I did in that fight, how I survived the fire, where my wings come from, and probably another billion questions." Louise frowned at her familiar, but nodded in curiosity. "Well I'll start from the beginning, and I'm going to be blunt about this, so prepare yourself." He looked at Louise with a serious expression, and she nodded, giving him all her attention.

"For starter's I'm not a human. To be more specific, I am an animas, a human who possess the ability to transform either parts of or their whole body into one of an animal. Back in my world, there were 2 kinds of humans, the normal ones like you, and the animas like me, who are more sort of in-between humans and animals. The amount of Animas is large, but small compared to the normal human population, about 1 in every 1000 is an animas. Animas and humans, for the most part, get along well. Animas possess certain abilities depending on what animal they are, and different forms. Among each animas type, there are different variations, but baseline they are all the same kind. Every animal that exists in my world there was an animas for it. There are 3 main kinds of animas, Pureblood, mixed blood, or Human born." Louise had a confused look on her face.

"Pureblood Animas are ones who have 2 animas parents, and their whole family bloodline has only been animas of its own kind. There aren't many left, but that's only because the species that have pureblood lines left are ones that usually only mate with their own kind. Mixed bloods are animas that either have 1 animas parent and 1 human parent, or at some point in their family's history had an ancestor who mated with a human, and they are a descendant. Despite what you may think, animas are not treated differently for what their blood line is by other animas, animas are treated for who they are, whether you are pureblood or mixed blood, it doesn't matter, you are treated how you treat others. Human born animas, or bastard animas, are animas born from 2 human parents, usually with no Animas blood in their family. Such animas are extremely rare, and the last time one was born was about 200 years ago. But still, they are not mocked for this, except by some humans, and are often welcomed into Animas communities with open arms, as they usually have no idea what they are or how to control it. The difference between the different kinds of animas in this regard is small at best, the only thing it really affects is how soon an animas gains their powers."

Louise simply nodded; this was a lot for her to take in. "What about you? What are you?" she asked.

"I am a pureblood dragonoid and the last of my kind in Eurthina. I guess I'll tell you about dragonoids, and my parents." Hiato took a deep breath. "Dragonoids are the rarest animas, the biggest our population ever got was about 10000, and now I'm the last one alive. Dragonoids possess control over fire, and are completely immune to it, and are capable of absorbing it through our skins to bolster out powers. The more we absorb, the more powerful we get, but on the flip side, the more powerful fire attacks we use, the quicker we drain our reserve of fire power. All dragonoids have a limit to how much they can absorb, and when that limit is reached, we simply stop absorbing. However no one had ever reached that point before. All dragonoids go through a ceremony called "The awakening" when they reach their 12 hatch day, or birthday in your terms. On this day, the parents will breathe fire onto their child, engulfing them and unlocking their dragon powers. This only happens when both parents are dragonoids, if only one is a dragonoid, they simply do it in secret. I never went through this ritual, so my powers were never unlocked, it's because my parents died before I turned 12." Hiato took another deep breath. "My mother was Weriece, and my father was Draidos, and what I'm going to say next will shock you."

Louise braced herself. "My father was 573 when I was born, and my mother was 549." Louise's jaw hit the floor. "573!? 549?!" she said, gawking. "Yes, dragonoids can live for thousands of years, and usually only mate over the age of 500." Hiato responded. "When dragonoids reach the age of 50, they make the most important choice of their lives, whether they accept their long life or reject it. We have a special organ inside us, our heart of hearts, which has a special magic that extends our life spans. When we turn 50 it is when we decide if we want our heart to activate, it remains dormant until you turn 50. If we chose to activate it, we gain a life span of thousands of years, if we chose not to, it just fades away. We don't know where it comes from; some say it was a gift from Draggosh, the Dragon emperor." Seeing Louise's face, Hiato sighed. "I should just write a book about all of this and make you read it, since you're gonna ask me everything. Draggosh was supposedly one of the first dragons, and he had immortality, yet despite that he disappeared. He was also a blue scaled dragon, the most powerful kind of dragon, and apparently he granted the gift to the earliest Dragonoids. Legends say that Draggosh disappeared after he had a child, because his physical body was destroyed somehow, and that his spirit lies dormant in his descendants and is passed from generation to generation, and in his 1000th son his soul will awaken. So that's how that supposedly came about, but I doubt it, because if his descendants were real, they would be obvious because they would be blue dragonoids just like he was."

"What about you?" Louise asked. At first Hiato was confused, but then understood what she was asking. "You mean my choice? I decided long ago that if I reached that age, and if I was offered the choice, I would reject it. If you wonder how we know, it's because we are drawn into a dreamlike state on the day it happens, and there we converse with our heart of hearts, which has a small conscious of its own, and it asks us the choice. The conscious dies regardless of our choice and some say that it is a fragment of Draggosh's spirit that lives inside us, and leaves when we make the choice. So is that all you wanted to know?" Hiato asked.

Louise slumped in her chair, absorbing everything she had just been told. Animas... dragonoids... this "dragon god"... blue scale dragons... her mind felt like a hurricane was storming through it. "Oh dear I've fried her brain out, now she won't be able to focus in class." Hiato mused, and Louise looked at him. She was starting at perhaps the most amazing person she could have ever imagined. He was a human, and a _dragon. At the same time. _She found it kind of hard to believe, but one thing made her feel overjoyed.

She really had summoned something no one had seen before, meaning she wasn't a zero after all. She would take time to get her head around everything he had just said, and even longer to sort through it all, she just hoped she didn't forget anything. Hiato stood up. "Well enough about that, we should get to class, shouldn't we, _master?_" He said in his usual playful tone, and Louise stood up, giving him the usual scowl she responded with. "Let's go." She said, turning to walk towards the door, but was stopped.

"Going down stairs is boring; I have another way we can get to class." Before Louise could ask, Hiato picked her up bridal style and walked to the window. "I need to ask you not to scream." He said simply, Louise went slightly red from the fact he was holding her.

"W-why not?" Louise asked, worried what her familiar was doing.

"Because we are going to jump out the window, that's why." Hiato said in an offhanded tone. Louise's eyes went wide. "Are you crazy!?" She asked. Hiato turned his head to look at her. "Slightly yes, why is that a problem?" Louise nodded so hard Hiato was surprised her head didn't fall off. "We are walking down, now put me down!" Louise demanded.

"Don't worry, I won't let anyone see your panties when we are falling, I'm not a pervert you know." Louise went red at this. "We are not doing this." She said

"We are doing this." Hiato responded.

"We are not." Louise responded.

"We are."

"We aren't"

"We are"

"We aren't"

"We are because I just jumped out the window." Hiato said simply. Louise suddenly became aware that they were indeed falling, and rather fast too. She screamed and wrapped her arms around Hiato's neck. "You idiot!" she yelled, and Hiato let out a laugh "Don't worry, you'll be fine." Hiato spread his wings and flapped them, changing their trajectory. Louise stopped clinging to him like she was clinging for dear life, and just collapsed into his arms. They flew a few times around the academy, and the whole time, Hiato had a look of pure joy on his face. Louise smiled; she started to enjoy flying around the academy, and even started to feel a little sleepy. She felt safe in Hiato's arms, like nothing in the world could hurt her. She blushed a little when she thought about it.

Hiato landed by the earth tower, and all the students started whispering as he landed, but Hiato ignored them and put Louise down. He decided he wouldn't attend class and would instead do a bit of flying with Sylphid. After saying goodbye to Louise, he turned around to see the blue dragon behind him.

"So, are you ready?" he asked. The dragon nodded, and Hiato grinned mischievously. "Good, cause I'm not going to make it easy on you." The dragon huffed at him, and Hiato folded out his wings, and then walked up next to her. "5 times around the school?" Sylphid nodded. Hiato got ready to start. "On my mark..." The other dragon braced herself. "Last one to finish is a rotten egg! MARK!"

Hiato immediately took off, and Sylphid grunted and followed him quickly. They were closely tied for all 5 laps, and Hiato just managed to eke out a win. Sylphid was fuming and Hiato just laughed at her. "Not my fault you're so slow." He teased, and the dragon huffed at him, and then knocked him over with her wings. "Ow." Was Hiato reply, and then heard running. He turned his head to see Professor Colbert running towards the earth tower. _Why's he in such a hurry? What is the school on fire or something? _Hiato chuckled, and looked at Sylphid. "Again?" he asked, and the dragon nodded.

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><p>Meanwhile in class, Louise was listening to a very interesting lesson on how to build a house using 1 brick and was <em>extremely <em>excited about it, and was _absolutely devastated _When Colbert marched in and announced what he announced.

"All classes for the rest of the day are cancelled." Immediate response was books, papers and pens being thrown into the air as half the class awoke from sheer boredom. The professor teaching the class was not amused, and just huffed and walked back to her office. "The reason for this is the princess is visiting the academy today, and will also be attending the familiar exhibition, so all students are to prepare for her arrival." Louise, after waking up from a boredom induced co- I mean _excitement _induced coma, was surprised. _The princess? I must get ready as quickly as I can for when she arrives._ She went outside and looked around for Hiato, and couldn't find him.

That quickly changed as he plummeted headfirst into the ground about 10 meters in front of her, and the way he hit the ground just made Louise burst out laughing. Hiato got up, with a rather large lump on his head, and a very un-amused look on his face. "Don't laugh, Sylphid cheated and knocked me out the sky." The blue dragon landed and seemed to have a very proud air about it; Hiato just shot it a look of malice, and then turned to face Louise, who was still laughing a little.

"Ugh, I guess that's what I get for jumping out a window with you." Louise stopped laughing, and then her face turned serious. "Hiato come with me, the princess is arriving today and we need to watch her arrival along with the rest of the students." Hiato's face got a look of surprise. "There's a Princess?" he asked stupidly.

Louise just looked at him. "I told you we have a princess you know." Hiato looked dumbfounded. "Really? When?" Louise face palmed, looked like hitting the ground had damaged his memory, and at that moments Hiato's face lit up. "NOW I remember! You did tell me! Ah, how could I have ever forgotten?" Louise just shook her head, then sighed and walked past Hiato. "Let's go, she should be arriving soon." Hiato turned around and started walking after her. "Why is she visiting?" He asked.

"She's coming to attend the familiar exhibition that's taking place..." At that Louise remembered something, and did a full 180 turn, and then yelled into Hiato's face. "We still haven't prepared anything! And it's TOMORROW!" Hiato hadn't been expecting this, so he was blasted backwards onto his arse by the sound wave.

"Yeesh, next time your gonna do that, warn me first ok?" He asked. He got up. "And what's this exhibition?"

"It's something all second year students do, they have to prepare a routine or performance their familiar does, and there are prizes, and if I'm right the princess is going to be a judge this year!" Louise then looked at Hiato, and a smug grin spread across her face. "And I'm going to win because I have the most amazing familiar in the school!" At that, Hiato blushed and laughed awkwardly. "Well thanks... I guess..." Then Hiato's eyes lit up. "Wait... when you say performance or routine... does it necessarily have to be something specific?" He asked in a very curious tone.

"No, why?" she asked, wondering what her familiar was thinking. Hiato immediately got a thinking look on his face, with his hand on his chin and all. "hmm." He said. He then looked at Louise. "Don't worry, I'll think of something, and It will be quite a show." Louise saw the confident look he had on his face, and she smiled and nodded. "Good." She simply said, turned around and started walking, with Hiato following her.

Later on, Hiato and Louise were standing at the front of the crowd of students that had gathered, after she had charged headfirst through the students like a rampaging bull, to watch the arrival of Princess Henrietta, the crown princess of Tristain. Hiato was half curious, and half cautious. He had never seen the ruler of a country before, and frankly had never wanted to, considering the ruler of his kingdom back home had been the reason he was hunted for nearly his whole life, for a reason that Hiato didn't fully know. He was interested to see if this Princess was different, he was guessing that she probably had a different way to rule her kingdom. A fanfare of trumpets distracted him from his thoughts.

The princess was arriving in a purple carriage, being pulled by unicorns, and Hiato's mouth fell open when he saw them. He had never seen a unicorn before, and back in his world they were a simple myth, one of the "lost" animas kinds that had gone extinct long before he was born. Louise wasn't looking, otherwise she might have either yelled at him or laughed at him, his face was quite a sight indeed. Siesta was standing nearby and let out a small giggle at Hiato's expression.

Inside the carriage, Princess Henrietta took a deep breath. She was slightly nervous, not only for the events of the familiar exhibition, but also about seeing her childhood friend again who, according to the headmaster of the academy, had summoned what many had first believed to be a commoner, but turned out to be some kind of dragon-human hybrid with extraordinary power. He had managed to capture Fouquet the crumbling dirt, and even brought an exhausted Louise back to the academy, and refused to leave her side until she awoke. The princess was interested and yet scared at the same time as to what kind of person this familiar could be, and she hoped Louise had been able to manage with it. The carriage drew to a stop, and Henrietta stood up, took a deep breath, and went outside.

Hiato was surprised at how beautiful the princess looked. She had dark purple hair, blue-green eyes, and was very pretty all around. Hiato could tell immediately she was a kind and loved ruler, as all the people started to cheer when they saw her. She walked up to old Osmond, who Hiato didn't like because of his perverted tendencies. He immediately scanned the area around the princess's feet, and was surprised to not see a small white rat, which was actually on the old man's shoulder. After bowing to the princess and welcoming her, he stood up and said that all students have the rest of the day to practice their act for the next day, and there better not be any shabby performances. Hiato grinned at that, he had a few ideas, but he knew he was going to come up with something so amazing people will be speaking about it for years, and build a statute to his awesomeness.

Henrietta scanned the crowd and spotted her pink haired friend, and smiled. She then looked for what she was assuming to be a large, intimidating, scary looking person, but instead saw a boy about only a head taller than Louise, with brown hair that seemed to have a faint red tint to it, a soft, friendly face and bright green eyes. She got another surprise when 2 wings sprouted out of his back, and he launched himself into the air and flew off, with Louise yelling after him. She then breathed a sigh of relief. _At least her familiar looks like someone who would protect Louise, and isn't the scary brute I imagined._ She turned and walked towards the academy, following the headmaster.

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><p>It was late in the evening, Louise was in her room in her nightgown sitting on her bed, and she was nervous, which is a severe understatement. Her familiar had disappeared after the princess arrived, and she hadn't been able to find him anywhere. She tried to calm herself down, but she knew that they needed to prepare something for tomorrow, and considering how she would have to soon retire for the evening, there was almost no time to prepare something.<p>

Little does she know, he's already got a plan.

Louise held her head in her hands; she was literally on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She didn't want to embarrass herself in front of the _Princess _of all people. She flopped backwards onto her bed, and then just yelled out loud. "Dammit Hiato where the hell are you!?"

"Um right here, and keep the noise down people are trying to get to sleep you know." Louise bolted upright and looked to her left to see her familiar fly in through the window. "And where have you been?" She asked.

"Busy." He responded. Louise stood up and glared at him. "Well we need to prepare something for the exhibition tomorrow you know, and you not coming back till evening is going to make it very-"

"Already done, I've got something worked out, so don't worry. Just sit back, and let me do my thing." He said, with a very confident smile on his face. Louise's mouth was hanging open. "Wait what, you went and prepared something?" she blurted out.

"Uhh, yeah, what do you think I was doing all day, just flying around?" he fixed her with a very goofy-serious stare, and crossed his arms. Louise just growled at him. "Fine, but it better be good, if you embarrass me in front of the whole school..." She glared at him, and if looks could kill, Hiato would be halfway to heaven/hell/purgatory/wherever you go when you die, right now.

"I won't, I won't, don't worry about it, don't glare at me like your trying to kill me." Hiato said with a reassuring grin. Louise just kept glaring at him. "What are you planning to do?" she asked.

"Now that's something you'll have to wait till tomorrow to see." Louise narrowed her eyes at him, and he just grinned. "No spoilers." She just sighed, and Hiato walked past her to his bed and sat down. "Well it's been a long day, and I need my sleep to get my energy back for tomorrow, so let's call it a night shall we?" he asked.

Louise nodded and climbed into her bed. Hiato then lied down and closed his eyes. Louise however, couldn't close her eyes. She looked over at Hiato and felt a pang of guilt as she saw his hay bed, she then went red when the next thought popped into her mind, but swallowed and sat up, deciding she would ask him anyway.

"H-hey Hiato?" she asked. Hiato opened his eyes, sat up and looked at Louise. "Yeah, something wrong?" he asked. Louise felt her face go redder, and her heart pound in her ears, but she swallowed and took a deep breath. "W-would you like to s-sleep on m-my bed w-with m-me?" she said really quickly. Hiato got a surprised look on his face, and started blushing profusely.

"Ummm, err... I don't know..." Hiato scratched the back of his head and looked away. Louise felt like her face was on fire from how much she was blushing. "I-if you really don't want to its ok!" she stammered out, she was worried he might think she was weird now.

"I-I really don't see why not... I mean... I'm just sleeping in the bed... right...?" He said, swallowing and looking at Louise, who went redder and nodded. He got up and climbed into the bed next to her.

As he lay down, he realised how comfortable Louise's bed was, and immediately felt like he was drifting off to sleep. "Thanks." He said to Louise, and then looked at her, and smiled. She nodded quickly. "I-it's a pleasure!" She then took a deep breath and lied down next to him. She glanced at him, and slowly crept closer to him, and when she realised he was asleep, she cuddled up against him and then he turned onto his side and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. She blushed a bit, but quickly got over it. He was still asleep.

_Do I really love him? I guess I probably do, and I'm guessing he feels the same way. _She snuggled closer to her familiar, and started to get sleepy. Her familiar's body was warm, and she felt like she was in a little cocoon wrapped in his arms, and as she drifted off to sleep, she had a smile on her face.

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><p><strong>And that's that! Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, a bit fluffy but I like it, and I hope you do too! Anyway, see you in the next chapter!<strong>


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello and welcome to chapter 9! For a warning, from here on, I will only loosely follow the events of the show, and most of what happens past this chapter, I will try to make original. Other than that's, thanks again to all those who have read and reviewed! Also I'm starting another fan fiction, so could you guys please check it out and tell me what you think. I Won't say anything about it, and I've decided im going to alternate between updating this one and the other one, so one chapter for this one in a week, then next week one for the other one and so on, so let's get going with the chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own familiar of zero.**

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><p>Louise was nervous. She had no idea what her familiar was planning, and hoped whatever it was, that it would be amazing. She turned her head to look at him. He had a very confidant smile on his face, and noticed she was looking at him, and chuckled. "You look like your about to pass out from nerves." A tick mark appeared on her forehead. "Well that's cause you won't tell me what you're planning, and what I have to do." Hiato laughed at this. "You don't have to do anything, just sit back and enjoy the show." He gave her a confidant smile. Louise just sighed. Nearly all the other students had gone already, Tabitha had done an impressive display with Sylphid, Kirche had awed the crowd with her familiar by making fire patterns in the sky, and Guiche... he had done what any self-respecting snob would do,<p>

"Next up, Louise Valliere and her familiar!" Louise swallowed and walked forward onto the stage, Hiato next to her. As they are walking along she heard people whispering, but she ignored them. As they reached the centre of the stage, she stops and turns to face the crowd. She then takes a deep breath and says:

"This is my familiar, Hiato, a Dragonoid." There was a gasp from the crowd, and more whispering. "A dragonoid? Whats that." Were some of the things she heard. She then looked at Hiato, who was looking up into the sky. Suddenly fire started to swirl around his hands, and the whole crowd fell silent. Louise threw a glance over the crowd to see the princess watching with a keen interest, and then something caught her eye.

There was a man standing to the left of the princesses raised Dias, he was just behind it but was watching Hiato with a strange smile on his face. He had black hair that came down to his shoulders; his face was very long and sunken, and seemed to have a malicious look to it. His eyes were grey, and seemed evil. He glanced at Louise, and she felt a shiver go down her spine. She then glanced back at Hiato, who seemed to be sending his fire into the air for some reason. She looked up and saw that he was making rings in different patterns in the sky, and they were floating about. They all seemed to settle in a sort of circuit that seemed to finish with a ring that was floating close to the stage. He then conjured a ball of fire and made it float in the middle of the last ring.

"Ok Hiato, what are you doing?" Louise asked. He looked at her and gave her a look that seemed as though she was asking a stupid question. "Isn't it obvious, I'm going to be flying through these rings." Louise looked up, and followed the path of the rings, then seeing how close to the buildings a few were, and close to the ground the last one was, she blurted out. "Surely you can't really be thinking of doing this, I mean... what if you hit the buildings, or the ground!?" Hiato just smirked at her. "Trust me; I know what I'm doing." Hiato then spread his wings, and was just about to take off when he looked at Louise. "And for the record, don't call me Shirley." Hiato then took off into the air, leaving behind a confused looking Louise.

Hiato flew up until he was above the highest of the rings. He then took a deep breath; he had practiced this about 30 times, and had only screwed up about 13 times, so he was sure he knew what he was doing. Sort of. He flapped his wings a few times to gain a little more height before diving straight down towards the first ring. The circuit he had made had 25 rings, including the last one. First there was a dive through 3, then a quick left towards the central tower, where he would fly through 4 rings that were moving about, then when he got to the tower pass through a ring that was facing the tower and extremely close, then turn right before he went headfirst into the wall. Following that was another 5 moving rings around the tower, as he passed through each ring they broke and went to form part of a large ball of fire that was above the stage. After those 5 he had seven in a zigzag pattern, and he almost touched the side of a ring twice, then there was the last 4. One was moving up and down, one left and right, one diagonally and one around in circles, which was at an angle towards the ground. He quickly navigated through these, and as he passed through the last ring, he pulled his wings in and dived towards the last ring.

Beneath him the crowd had been watching with great interest, and now were getting nervous as he was diving towards the ground. Louise especially, she had seen him do a dive bomb before and not screw it up, but she was still nervous, worried what the reaction would be if her familiar ended up headfirst in the ground, probably everyone would laugh at her, and the princess wouldn't even consider the performance for anything better than last place. So far, Louise had been amazed at what her familiar had done, and she was expecting that if he managed to finish it the way he intended, it would be awe inspiring.

Hiato was getting closer to the ground, and the final ring. He knew that this was an all or nothing gambit, if it worked, Louise would probably come first, if it failed, he would end up with a bloody painful headache, a face full of dirt, and about 100 people laughing at him, well at least he would provide comedic relief if that happened. Time slowed down as he reached the final ring, reaching out he grabbed the ball of fire, extended his wings, and waiting for the right moment, flapped them and managed to change course. Time sped up as he went straight over the heads of the crowd, and quickly flapped his wings again to avoid going headfirst into the wall. As he soared up into the air, he turned around to face the stage.

_Now for the grand finale. _The ball of fire that had been gathering above the stage now turned into a dragon, and it let out a great roar, making the crowd gasp. Smirking, Hiato charged towards the dragon with the ball of fire in his right hand, and the dragon charged towards him. As he got closer he held his right arm out, and flew straight through the fire-dragon, but the fireball in his hand was missing. Quickly flapping his wings, he managed to slow his decent and landed on the stage with a large thud. The dragon flew up into the air and after about 5 seconds after Hiato landed, exploded into a giant firework. Smaller fireworks shot out the explosion and went off, sending more fireworks out. The explosion was spectacular, and everyone, except the man behind the Dias, who smirked and walked off, muttering to himself "Better tell Arthur he's the one", jumped up and started clapping furiously.

Bits of the fireworks explosions were floating down like torches, small lights that were about 5 times bigger than a grain of dust, but bright enough to be seen clearly, made a scene that was truly awe inspiring. Louise's eyes were wide in amazement, and her mouth just hung open at the display, and she slowly turned to look at Hiato who seemed pleased with his handiwork.

"See, what I tell you, it was amazing." He said looking at Louise, who nodded slowly, still unable to truly comprehend just how beautiful the scene in front of her was. Some of the little lights were floating down around her as well, and suddenly Hiato walked over to her, and slid his hand in hers, which made her blush and him to a small extent.

"This is all for you, you know. I really went all out with this, but to be honest, I didn't need all these people to see it to know I did a good job. Once I saw the look on your face after I finished, then I knew I had done a good job." Hiato smiled at Louise, who felt like her face was about to catch fire from the blush she was experiencing. "T-thanks Hiato, it really means a lot for you to do this." She managed to say, not looking at Hiato to prevent him seeing her blush.

Hiato just laughed. "You know, I think it's cute when you blush. Really matches your hair." He said teasingly, and Louise just went redder, and turned to look at him, with an angry look on her face, which Hiato laughed at, and Louise just got angrier.

"What are you laughing at?" she barked at him. Hiato stopped laughing and just looked at her with a smile on his face. "You know, if you didn't take everything so personally, you would probably have more friends, and also don't be ashamed of your feelings." Louise got angrier, and scrunched up her face. "What are you talking abo-"

Suddenly she was cut off mid-sentence, and when she realised what had just happened, she blushed to the roots of her hair, and her eyes went wide. Hiato had just _kissed _her on the lips. At that moment her mind just went into overload, she didn't know what to think or do, but then she just closed her eyes, and kissed Hiato back. She didn't know how long she stood there in the kiss, it felt like forever, but eventually Hiato broke it, and Louise saw his face had also gone red. "That's what I'm talking about." He said with a smile, and then turned to face the crowd, and gave an excessively showy bow. Louise frowned at him, but then turned to face the crowd, who had somehow missed the 2 of them kissing, and gave a curtsey.

The princess looked at the stage as Louise curtseyed, and she responded in kind. The whole crowd now turned back to face the stage, and started clapping furiously again. Hiato and Louise bowed and curtseyed respectively, and then walked off stage. All the students were looking at Louise with shocked looks on their faces, and this gave Louise a sense of great pride, and she stood slightly more upright. Hiato had to stop himself from laughing at the looks on the other students faces as they walked past them, well everyone except Tabitha, who just said as they walked past her. "Nice." Sylphid stepped out and nuzzled her head against Hiato, and he responded by patting her on the head.

After the last few students went, who didn't produce anything even near the level of Hiato's performance. As the last student, a thin looking kid wearing glasses with an owl for his familiar, walked off. Louise got nervous again. She knew her familiar performance had been exceptional, and probably the best, but she was still nervous. The announcer next to the Princess cleared his throat, and using a spell to amplify his voice volume, started to call out the top 5.

"In 5th place, we have Jean de Caparias..." A medium height boy with a phoenix familiar walked onto stage. "In 4th place we have Guiche de Gramont..." Guiche walked onto stage, looking like the posh snob he is. "In 3rd place we have Kirche Zerbst..." the red head strolled onto stage with her usual walk, with a smug grin on her face. "In 2nd place we have... Tabitha..." Tabitha walked onto stage followed by Sylphid, the smug grin on Kirche's face was gone now.

"And in 1st place, we have... Louise de Valliere!"

Louise was filled with pride as she walked on stage, and Kirche had a rather distraught look on her face, and Hiato just had a smile. He didn't care about winning the competition for himself, he glanced at the huge smile on Louise's face, and how happy she seemed to be, because he only cared about making Louise happy. He chuckled. _Well I guess it's too late for me, but what's the point in trying to deny how I feel about her? _He just smiled to himself, and bowed when the princess walked up to Louise to personally congratulate her.

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><p>Later in Louise's room, Louise was lying on her bed, looking at the roof with a smile almost permanently stuck to her face. Today had been the best day of her life, she had proven she wasn't a zero, and Hiato had<em> kissed<em> her, but as she thought of that she blushed profusely. She can still remember how her brain seemed to go into overload then just turn into sludge almost straight afterwards. She had enjoyed it, and she wished that it had never ended. Since that moment, Hiato had started to joke around with her, and tease her, and she had managed to actually smile for once instead of get angry like she usually did. Her familiar was currently out doing the laundry, which Louise was unaware meant give the laundry to Siesta, run off to the kitchen, eat enough food to feed an army, then get the completed laundry from Siesta and come back upstairs acting like he'd done it, or just fly up to the window, depending on his mood.

At that moment, Hiato flew in through the open window, and Louise sat up straight and looked at him. Hiato had a tired look on his face. After Hiato's display, Osmond had also walked up to Louise to congratulate her, and had promptly caught fire when his mouse (which Hiato saw was trying to peer up the princess's skirt) experienced near spontaneous combustion, except it was just its hair that caught fire. It had panicked and run up its master's leg onto his shoulder, setting his robe on fire, and then his beard, which he only managed to save half of. He now walked around with a scowl on his face, because every student would double over in laughter at the sight of his slightly singed face and the fact the entire left side of his face was now deprived of hair, and that his mouse was now completely bald and slightly black. Hiato was exhausted because when Osmond erupted into flames, instead of doing what a sane mage would do and immediately use magic to put the fire out, he ran around like a headless chicken, flailing his arms like an idiot, screaming like a little girl, and managed to set the stage on fire, Hiato had to contain the fire, and since Osmond was running around setting stuff on fire, he had a hard time of it.

He eventually managed to stop Osmond from burning down the whole academy, and afterwards had to make a quick exit when Osmond started wondering how his mouse had caught fire. All in all, it had been a long day for the dragonoid, and he was looking like he just wanted to go to sleep soon. He walked over to the table and put the laundry down and looked at Louise. "Laundry, done, me sleep now. If you have problem, keep it till morning." Louise laughed at his disjointed speech, and Hiato frowned at her. "Not funny, stop laughing." He said, before walking over to the bed and falling on it next to Louise, who giggled at his behaviour. Hiato just sighed. "No but seriously, can we go to sleep soon, I feel like I'm about to fall over when I'm standing up, that whole business with Osmond was a pain."

At the mention of the headmaster, Louise got a curious look on her face. "Did you actually set his mouse on fire?" Hiato let out a nervous laugh and scratched the back of his head. "Well... _technically _I didn't set him it fire..." Louise sweat dropped at this. "You know if he finds out I could get in _serious _trouble right?" Hiato laughed again. "Don't worry, he will never know, and besides it's what he deserves, the old pervert, trying to use his mouse to peek up girl's skirts." Louise went red at this. "W-wait does that mean..." Hiato looked at her. "Don't worry, I caught it trying to peak up yours once, and I gave it a warning that it would die if it did, and now hopefully Osmond has learnt his lesson." Hiato smirked, and Louise sighed. She was sure that if what Hiato had done was found out by Osmond, she would be in a rather large amount of trouble, and her mother would be furious, but she decided she would worry about that tomorrow.

At that moment someone knocked on the door. Hiato bolted upright and looked at the door. "OK, that's either Kirche coming to give me another gift, someone pulling a prank or a staff member, either way, I think I should get it." Hiato stood up, and wobbled unsteadily on his feet, and sort of hobbled/dragged himself across the room, and Louise had to fight to resist laughing at him. He got to the door, flopped against it and opened it about an inch.

"Hello?" He asked. Outside the door was a stranger in a hood, who immediately pushed the door open and quickly entered the room. Unfortunately for Hiato who was standing behind the door, this meant that as the stranger pushed the door open, Hiato was hit in the chest by a door moving at high speed which sent him flying through the air and he hit the wall headfirst, and quickly announced his displeasure by saying. "Ouch." Louise stood up, wand in hand, and glared at the intruder.

"Who are you?" she demanded of the cloaked stranger. "And why are you here? Answer me!" She pointed her wand at the intruder, who then looked up at her.

"My dear Louise, it certainly has been a while, hasn't it?" The stranger pulled her hood back, revealing her to be Princess Henrietta. Louise's face turned from one of anger to one of shock faster than you could drop a hat, and immediately went down on one knee. "Princess! My most humble apologies, I did not know it was you." The princess just smiled and walked up to her old friend. "No apologies are needed, it was only natural for you to react the way you did to a stranger who suddenly burst into your room without invitation."

"And sent me flying headfirst into a wall, thanks a lot for that, it's really gonna help me sleep." The princess turned to see Hiato managing to stand up, holding the back of his head. "My apologies, I take it you must be Louise's familiar? The Dragonoid I've heard about?" Hiato just gave a nod. "Hiato, that's me, and you're the princess? I have to admit, not the best of introductions." Henrietta laughed at this, but before she could say anything, Hiato suddenly found he was getting a very close up and _painful _view of the floorboards.

"Do not speak to the princess like that!" Louise barked at Hiato, who was literally on the verge of passing out. "My apologies, my Familiar can act out of line sometimes, please forgive him." Henrietta laughed, and just smiled. "It's alright, and stop acting so formal, were friends aren't we? You're so uptight Louise, try to relax." Hiato forced his head away from the floorboards and said "Thank you princess, and I too apologize, but I have been trying to make her less uptight, and I think I'm making progress." Louise was about to slam dunk his face into the floor again when Henrietta smiled. "Thank you, it is good to know my best friend has a familiar with such a good heart." Hiato went a little red at this. "To be honest princess it's not because I have a good heart, it's because I care about Louise, and I just want to make her happy." Louise went red at this, and she got a lump in her throat, and the princess giggled.

"I fear this may be more than just a familiar-master relationship." Louise went redder and looked down at the floor, but the princess cut her off from saying anything. "It's ok Louise, now look at me, I hate to say this, but I bring bad news." Louise and Hiato both looked at the princess who now had a serious face. "What is it?" Louise asked, all her precious formality gone; now addressing the princess in a tone more suited for friends. The princess smiled a little at this, but then turned serious again. "I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you..." she looked at Hiato "... are in a great amount of danger, and not from the headmaster."

Hiato's face had gone serious now, and he almost seemed to look older. "What do you mean? What kind of danger?" He asked. "Life threatening danger, but it's just you. You and every other dragon like familiar in Tristain." Hiato frowned.

"What are you talking about, is someone hunting down dragon like familiars?" The princess nodded gravely, and Hiato got a look of shock on his face. "They are known as the Guild of dragon slayers, or their official title, the order of the grand hunt. They are a recently new group, who's only purpose is to hunt down dragons and kill them, be they familiars or wild, and you especially having attracted their interest." Hiato clenched his fists, and looked down. "I believe so long as you remain at the academy, you should be safe, but there are no guarantees, as they could easily sneak into the academy and assassinate you." The princess added.

"Dammit no. Not again, I will NOT let that happen again!" He looked at the princess, who was surprised by the look in his eyes. "I will NOT go on the run again, I've finally found a home and people who I can protect and care about, I will NOT let whoever these bastards are take that away from me! I would rather die, I'm not running anymore." Louise and Henrietta were surprised by his tone of voice. Louise had never heard him speak like that before, he was angry, and also another thing. Louise could hear pain in his voice, she knew what he meant. He had told her about how he had been an exile in his world, how he had been all alone, and now he was afraid the same thing would happen again.

Louise moved over to Hiato and then, without warning him, lifted up his face and kissed him on the lips, surprising him and Henrietta. When she broke the kiss, she saw his cheeks had gone red, and she could feel her own cheeks going red, but she had a serious look on her face.

"I promise you, I won't let whoever these dragon slayers are hurt you, and I promise you will not be alone again, I promise." Hiato face was still one of surprise, but as Louise's words registered; his face seemed to brighten up. "R-really?" Louise nodded. "I promise, I will do anything I can." She then looked at the princess, who was still surprised from earlier. "Princess, can you also help us with this?" she recovered and nodded her head. "I will do my best to ensure your safety, your familiars' safety and the safety of all the dragons here at the academy." Hiato looked at her, and then he nodded. "Thank you, princess. It means a lot to me, and I'm glad to see your one who cares about her country and its people."

Henrietta curtseyed. "I am honored to have the approval of a dragon." Hiato bowed. "The honour is all mine princess." The princess then looked at the 2 of them. "I will start by having investigations done into the guild, and seeing what I can find. I will also see if I can find out where their base of operations is." Hiato and Louise nodded. "Make sure to inform the headmaster as well, he has to know." Louise added. "I will tomorrow morning, and Tabitha must be informed as well. This threat is a great one, and I will need your help and your familiar's in dealing with it, Louise Valliere." Louise stood upright. "I will do anything the princess commands of me!" Hiato nodded. "As will I, as long as it brings these bastards to justice." Henrietta smiled. "I am glad to have your support."

She pulled her hood up and made her way to the door. "I will speak to you tomorrow; then we can discuss more of this matter, but for now I'm sure your familiar needs some sleep." Louise heard a loud _thud_ and turned to her right to see Hiato collapsed on the floor, quickly falling asleep. "Goodnight Louise, Hiato." Louise turned to look at her. "Goodnight, Henrietta." The princess smiled, and exited the room, closing the door behind her.

Louise turned around and looked at Hiato who had managed to sit up and was looking at her. She walked over and helped him get into bed; rather he just collapsed onto the bed, and then moved so he wasn't taking up three quarters of it. Louise sat down on the other side and looked at him.

"Huh, looks like wherever I go, danger seems to follow me." Hiato said, and then looked at Louise. "But this time I'm not running away, this time I'll stay and fight." Louise smiled at this, and then climbed into bed and wrapped her arms around Hiato. "Good and I'll make sure I can learn how to use magic properly so I can help you fight." Now it was Hiato's turn to smile. "Thanks, and I'll help you learn magic, and I'll also train so I can get stronger." Louise looked at Hiato's face, which had a smile on it. She smiled back and then rested her head against his chest. As she drifted off to sleep, she realized something.

Today had been the best day of her life so far, but it had also been the last normal day of her life.

**And there it is! Hope you all enjoyed AND like the new direction im taking the story in. Anyw**

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><p><strong>ay, thank you all again for reading, and once again, please review, I read them all! Thank you once more, and I will see you in the next chapter! Bye bye!<strong>


	10. Chapter 10

**Hello everybody and welcome to chapter 10! Thanks again to all those who have read and reviewed, it means a lot. Also next week I may not be able to get a chapter of Fan fic up because I'm going to be away for most of the week, so sorry about that. Anyway, on with chapter 10!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own FOZ.**

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><p><em>They lit up the air around her like little stars. Thousands of them, and she was captivated by their beauty. For as far as she could see, these little lights were hanging, suspended on invisible threads. She looked around, as far as she could tell, she was alone. She looked up to see the stars stretched across the sky, almost every inch of sky was filled with stars. Then she heard something, the sound of beating wings. She turned towards the source of the noise, expecting to see Hiato approaching, but instead of Hiato, there was something else, and when she saw it, she wasn't sure if she should be scared or be amazed.<em>

_There was a dragon flying towards her through the sky, and Louise could feel the force of each beat of its wings. As it drew closer, the force of its wings scattered the little lights away from Louise, she held up her arms to shield her face from the gusts of wind, and the dragon landed in front of her. The dragon was enormous, it dwarfed Louise, which made her feel uncomfortable, because it could step on her and not even notice. However, it did notice her, and looked down at her at the same time Louise looked up at it. Its eyes were light blue, in contrast to its dark blue scales, and Louise just felt that from simply making eye contact with this dragon, it was a being of possibly immeasurable power._

"_Greetings, Louise Valliere." It said in a voice that sounded old. Old and powerful. "Do not fear, I mean you no harm, nor do I mean Hiato any." Louise blinked at the dragon. She was confused as to how the dragon knew who she was, or who Hiato was. "W-who are you? How do you know who Hiato is and how do you know who I am?" The dragon chuckled. "My my, you certainly can fire them off quickly can't you?" The dragon said, and Louise felt a pang of annoyance. The dragon chuckled again. _

"_My apologies, it's been a while since I've talked to anyone, so I'm lacking in the social department. As for your questions, I'm afraid I won't be able to answer the first one, but I can answer the next 2." Louise's annoyance faded. "Why can't you tell me who you are?" She asked._

"_Because who I am isn't important right now. As for how I know Hiato, I've known him my whole life, and I know you because Hiato knows you." Louise just looked at the dragon, and all she could say is. "What?" The dragon sighed. "You'll understand one day, but I must warn you. This group, the order of the grand hunt, do not underestimate them. They are a small part of a greater evil; one which I fear will soon be moving soon to try to conquer the world. You must train as hard as you can to unlock your true powers as a void mage Louise." _

_At this Louise got more confused. "Greater evil? True power? And did you call me a v-void mage?!"_

"_Yes I did, and your powers will mean the difference between saving this world and it being destroyed. We have talked enough, you must go now, and do not tell Hiato about this, do you understand?" Louise just looked at the dragon._

"_Why?" Louise asked, more confused. "Because he must find out who I am on his own, and do not worry, knowing him, he will find out very soon. Now, morning is here, you must awaken." Before Louise could say anything else, the dragon disappeared, and everything went black._

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><p>Louise's eyes slowly opened. She was still wrapped in the warmth of Hiato's arms, and she smiled. Her dream was hazy, she could barely remember anything about it, except the dragon, the lights and some of what it said, but what she remembered didn't make much sense. She decided it wasn't important, and wouldn't bother Hiato about it. She lifted her head from his chest and looked at his face. She had to supress a giggle when she saw his face; he looked silly when he slept. His mouth was hanging open, but only a little bit, and in a cute way. She leaned up and kissed him gently on the lips.<p>

Hiato suddenly became aware of something soft pressing against his lips. He had been having a rather pleasant dream about being at a food contest and winning, but not before managing to eat enough food to feed a city for a month, and then taking Louise for a flight. He had been just about to kiss her, when his brain had said "Nope" and yanked him out of slumber land and back into reality. However what he was greeted with when he returned was rather pleasant. He opened his eyes, and was surprised to see that Louise was kissing him, so he decided to return the kiss.

They broke apart and Hiato smiled at her. "To what do I owe the pleasure of being awoken in such a way?" He asked jokingly, and Louise just shook her head. "Just you being you." Hiato sat upright and assumed a proud air. "Well I am totally amazing you know, the best there ever is or was." Louise chuckled and playfully hit him on the shoulder, to which Hiato responded by making a hurt face.

"That realllllyyyyy hurt, why are you so meaaaannnnn to me I didn't do anythinnnnng." Louise raised an eyebrow at him, and then just jumped on him and kissed him. They held the kiss for 10 seconds before breaking apart. "Does that make it up to you?" She asked. Hiato nodded. "But some food would be nice too." Louise just smiled. "Don't worry; I'm sure the chefs are cooking up a feast for you right now." Louise jumped out of bed and started to get changed; Hiato got out of bed and stood by the window, his back to Louise.

"I guess were going to have to start training today, if we want to be ready for this "Order of the grand hunt" or whatever their called." Louise finished changing and walked up next to him, taking his hand. Hiato opened the window as she did. "Yeah, but we will be ready for them, and we'll beat them, together." They looked at each other, and Hiato smirked. "No, I'll beat them, you can just sit on the side-lines and make a few of them blow up." He said in a joking tone, and a small tick mark appeared on Louise's forehead.

"Or I could blow you up instead you know." She gave him an evil look, and nervously scratched the back of his head. "I-I'm kidding, we will beat them together, of course we will." Louise just glared at him, and then his face turned serious. "It isn't going to be easy; we'll have to train as hard as we can." Louise nodded. "I know, but we don't really have a choice."

"Well we could always go live somewhere secluded, buy a house, get married, have some kids..." Louise went as red as a Tomato at this, yelled "SHUT UP!", and punched Hiato out the window , who had only a second to realise the pain of being punched, one to realise he was outside a window, and one to realise he was plummeting towards the ground at an incredibly fast rate, with no sign of slowing down. Managing to spread his wings and slow down, Hiato prevented creating an impact crater and flew back up to the window, where there was a rather red looking Louise, who had a worried look on her face.

"Jeez I was joking relax, we aren't going to go hide somewhere, we are going to fight." Louise looked relieved he was ok, and then sighed. "Don't ever say something like that again, ok?" She said to Hiato, who just nodded. "Promise I won't. Anyway, we should go see the headmaster and the princess and see what they know about these guys." Louise nodded, and the two of them walked out her room and to the headmaster's office.

When they arrived, they were greeted by the princess, the headmaster and professor Colbert. Louise gave the princess a small curtsey, and Hiato bowed. Once they gathered around Osmond's desk, Osmond shot a threatening look at Hiato, who responded in kind, and there was friction in the air between them until Henrietta defused the situation before the tower got blown up.

"Now is not the time for petty grudges, we must work together if we are to handle this threat." Osmond and Hiato broke their glare and looked at the princess. "Firstly, Osmond I would like you to inform Louise of her mage status." Osmond looked surprised but regained his composure. "Well Miss valliere, here's the thing, we figured out why you're so bad at magic." Louise shot the old pervert a look of death, and Hiato quickly scanned the floor for a certain white rodent to roast. He was impressed when he saw the mouse on the old man's shoulder. _Good, the old bastards learnt his lesson. _

"It's because you're a void mage." Colbert said, saving the headmaster from the over bearing glare he was receiving from Louise. Louise's face promptly turned to one of total shock. "W-what?" She asked.

"You heard the professor young lady, you are a void mage, now stop acting surprised, we don't have time for it." Osmond said, looking at Louise seriously. Louise's brain was in overload. _M-me a void mage?! But that's impossible! Void mages are supposed to be ones of great talent and- _Suddenly her dream flashed back to her_ "...Your true powers as a void mage Louise." _Those words echoed through her mind, and it felt like an eternity until she regained awareness of her surroundings.

"Oh dear it looks like you've sent her into shock." Hiato said, looking at Louise, who regained her senses as he said that. "Never mind." He quickly added. He then looked at the headmaster. "What is a void mage?" he asked

"A void mage is one who can control the legendary element of void." _I would have never guessed, I really don't thing you needed to clarify that old man _Hiato said to himself _"_They are powerful, extremely so, the founder brimir himself was a Void mage, and that brings us to how we know you are a void mage, because you are Gandalfr, Hiato."

Now Hiato was confused. "Gandalfr?" Osmond nodded. "One of Brimirs legendary familiars, he was said to be the master of all weapons, able to use any of them without any difficulty and master them instantly upon touching them." _Sounds useful _he said to himself. "Ok, so what about these Dragon hunters?" Hiato asked.

The princess stepped forward. "They are fairly new, we only learnt about them a week ago, and what we've heard is not good. They mercilessly hunt dragons, and sometimes even kill the mage if it's a familiar they are hunting." Louise grabbed Hiato's hand and held it tight. "They appear to be active in all major nations except for one..." Hiato looked at the princess. "Which one?" he asked. "Albion, for some reason we have no word of them being active in that kingdom, but it may just be due to the rebellion taking place there." Hiato nodded. "Anything else?" He asked.

"Yes, it's about them knowing about you. They have started making inquiries about you to the nobility and the academy, they are asking if you would be willing to meet them at a specified location so they can 'observe' you, they promise no harm will come to your person, nor any to anyone you bring with you. They have also been trying to gleam as much information about you as they possibly can from us."

"What has been your response?" Hiato asked.

"We have provided them with as little information about you as we can, unfortunately they do know you are at the academy, and they do know about your powers and that Louise is your master, we have no idea how they found that out." Henrietta looked at Osmond. "They also made inquiries about Tabitha, but they fortunately know far less about her, so it has been easier to keep them from finding out about her."

"Has she been told about this?" Louise asked.

"She will be, Professor Colbert, I think you should inform Miss Tabitha right away about the situation." The professor nodded and left the room quickly. "What's this about a rebellion?" Hiato asked.

"An unknown faction has risen up in Albion, and is currently fighting the crown for control of the country in a massive revolution, last I heard, it was not going well for them." The princess said.

"Is it possible the 2 are connected?" Hiato asked the princess, with a thoughtful look on his face. "Possibly, but we cannot be sure, as we do not know if they are active in Albion or not."

"It would make sense... send them in as saboteurs... take out any mages with dragons... remove a significant threat..." Hiato looked at the princess. "Do the rebels use dragons?" he asked. The princess nodded. "According to reports we have received, yes they do, why do you want to know?"

"Hmm... well IF these guys aren't active in Albion, I reckon they could be connected to these rebels you're talking about." Hiato looked at the princess. "But as you said, we don't know fully what's going on over there, so they could really be just a rouge faction with their own aims, but we don't know for sure." The princess nodded. "Indeed, you seem to be able to analyse things like this quite quickly." Hiato shrugged. "Hey I'm not an idiot; my brain does work, despite popular belief." Louise smiled at this. "No one said you were an idiot you know."

"No one said I wasn't either." Hiato pointed out. Louise rolled her eyes at him. Hiato looked at the princess. "And we have no idea where their bases are or anything?" The princess shook her head. "No we don't, in fact as I said before, we only know they exist because they willingly revealed their presence to us, had they not, they would have gone unnoticed for a long time, perhaps until it was too late."

"So what's the plan?" Hiato asked. "We will be stepping up security here at the academy greatly, to ensure none of these dragon slayers can get in and harm either you or Tabitha's dragon." Osmond said. "I will be doing my best to try to find out what I can about this guild, and see if I can locate its base of operations. It is a threat to many mages in this country, and I will not allow them to go around slaughtering dragons as they please." Hiato and Louise nodded. "And we will be training as hard as we can so if we do have to fight them, we can win." The headmaster and princess nodded. "You can get started today. Louise Valliere, I give you permission to miss classes today in order to train with your familiar." The pinkette bowed to the headmaster. "Thank you sir!" Hiato bowed as well. "Thank you sir."

The princess smiled. "Good to see you are committed. Well I guess we should all get to work then, I will see you again Louise, train hard." Louise smiled and nodded at the princess. "I will, and good luck to you princess." Henrietta nodded back, and the 2 girls embraced each other. As they did, Hiato and Osmond exchanged a glance. "This isn't over." Osmond growled. "You will pay." Hiato smirked. "I look forward to it, grey hairs." Osmond was about to stand up and yell at him when the 2 girls broke their embrace and Hiato and Osmond looked at them with smiles on their faces.

"Come on Hiato lets go." Louise walked up to Hiato and took his hand and led him out the office. As the door shut, Hiato sneaked once last glare at Osmond. "Do you think they will be ok?" Henrietta asked Osmond. "I'm sure they will, that Valliere girl never has been one to give up, and I doubt her familiar is different." The princess nodded. "I hope your right."

* * *

><p>Outside in one of the courtyards, Hiato and Louise were preparing to start training. Hiato decided he would practice some of his martial arts, and Louise would try to cast a spell without it blowing up in her face the whole time. After about 10 minutes, Hiato decided it would be best for him to help Louise. "Need help?" he asked walking over. Louise was breathing heavily, she had spent the last 10 minutes firing off explosion spells without stop, and it had taken a toll on her.<p>

"N-no I'm fine." She said.

"You clearly aren't because you look like you've been dragged through a bush backwards, so let me help." Louise glared at him, but she didn't say anything. "Ok, how should I start?" she asked him.

"Well to be honest, I don't know how to train someone who uses magic, but I'll give it a shot." He walked up to her and gave her a hug. She was about to ask if this was part of the training when she felt her stamina being restored suddenly. When Hiato let go, she felt like nothing had happened. "What did you just do?" she asked. "I just restored your stamina, turns out If I concentrate hard enough, I can restore someone's stamina and heal their wounds."

"Really?" Hiato nodded. "Yep, now let's get to training shall we?" Louise nodded. After an hour of intense training, the 2 of them relaxed under a tree in the court yard. "How you feeling?" Hiato asked Louise, who gave him a look that asked said 'Are you really asking me?'

"I feel _great _Hiato, _thanks _for asking." It took Hiato a second to realise she was being sarcastic. He was stunned. "Hiato are you ok?" She asked him, waving a hand in front of her face. "No I'm fine just recovering from the shock of you using sarcasm, it sounds weird, but I like it, good to see you aren't so stuck up anymore." Louise looked at him and she frowned. "Stuck up?" She asked. "Yeah, when I met you, you had a lot of pride, too much; but now, you're more down to earth, and I like that." Louise blushed at this and looked away. Hiato just laughed and hugged her from behind.

"It's a good thing, and every day I can see your slowly turning more into a person other people can like. You know what Louise?" Louise looked at him. "I have an idea, and I know you won't like it, but I reckon it's a good one." Louise raised an eyebrow at him. "And what idea is that?" She asked.

"You should become friends with Kirche Zerbst."

Louise looked at him for a full 10 seconds to comprehend what he had just said. "Friends." Hiato nodded. "With Zerbst?" Hiato nodded again. "Are you stupid? Her family and mine are rivals; I would never stoop so low as to become her friend." Hiato sighed _this is gonna take a while. _"Well don't you think you should try to fix that hatred?" Louise just looked at him. "Why should i? What could I possible gain from it?"

"A chance to right the wrongs of the past and perhaps make a friend? You know what we are going into right? If these rebels in Albion want to spread their revolution, there could be a war, and if that happens, were going to need all the help we can get, and having rivals isn't going to help. Plus, and I know I'm sounding really dark here, but if you die, or she dies, do you want that to happen, and be left wondering if you could have ever been good friends?" Hiato was looking seriously now at Louise.

She had never thought about that, and frankly, she knew her mother would never approve of the idea, yet thinking over what Hiato had just said, she felt a sense of rebellion swelling up inside her. She then got an evil smile on her face. "Ok, I'll do it, on one condition." She looked at Hiato, who got a worried look when he saw her face. "Ok, what's that?"

"After our next training session, you have to fly me around the school, and then when we are above the central tower, you have to kiss me." Hiato raised an eyebrow. "Ok... that sounds easy enough..." Louise smiled. "Thanks Hiato!" She said in a really high pitched voice which scared Hiato a little bit, but he smiled.

"Alright then, lets get to work."

* * *

><p><strong>And that's that! Sorry it's a bit shorter than usual, but I reckon it's good. Please read and review, and I will see you in the next chapter, bye bye!<strong>


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